Fostering EFL learners' decision making skill through adopting statistics education into academic research

Abstract

This study investigates the role that statistics education plays in fostering the EFL learners’ decision making skill when conducting scientific research. The students, at Master level, are engaged into independent learning where they need to make their own decisions concerning their research, dissertation writing, selecting methodological procedures, choosing the right interpretations and so on. This is why, in this study, we suggest statistics education as a way to help them think logically and base their decisions on reason and argumentation during the research process. Our population, thus, is constituted of Master students of English at the Department of English, University of BEJAIA from whom 25 students have been selected to participate in the research experiment and 25 students have participated as a comparison group. This study follows the procedures of an experimental design where both qualitative and quantitative methods are used; the data gathered from the questionnaires and the error analysis are analyzed through descriptive statistics and the data from tests and scales are analyzed through inferential statistics. Finally, data from the interview are analyzed thematically. The results of this study have revealed that our sample has developed their decision making skills; the students have been able to make decisions thoroughly and following scientific research principles. Although the students have been prone to statistics anxiety most of the time, their knowledge of the importance of statistics in scientific research led them to make great efforts to understand and apply the lessons. Moreover, the results have entailed a syllabus for an “EFL Statistics Education” which bases on Master’s students’ needs