Most people tend to use natural language terms to convey likelihoods (think “maybe,” “probably”, “certainly”) rather than probabilities expressed as percentages. We often assume that when we use a term, other people understand it in the same way we do. But research has found there is wide variation in what people have in mind when they use these terms, which makes it challenging to precisely evaluate another person’s estimations. In this lesson, students will compare their understanding of common terms to highlight the variations in meaning we assign them.

Students will assign numerical probabilities to words commonly used to convey likelihoods. By comparing their values to those of their classmates, they will uncover areas of agreement and disagreement in their understanding of common terms.