Students' Understanding of the Significance Level in Test of Hypothesis

In this short presentation we describe the experimental results obtained from a group of university students who were asked about the interpretation given to the significance level in a test of hypothesis. From the analysis of students' arguments, interesting conclusions about the students' understanding and use of the concept are deduced and a wide variety of misconceptions which extend the results from Falk and White are shown. We think these conclusions constitute a first step towards the identification of obstacles in the learning of the aforementioned concept and can contribute to an improvement in the teaching and application of statistics.