Dear Montserrat,

to me good teaching should always be a good mix of theory and application. Going to deep into the mathematical theory is somewhat boring for economics students. You need the theory too for own application, but in the first step an introduction based on examples and graphical properties in my opinion is the first step for effective learning.So in beginning working with more applications and exercises makes the topic interesting and facilitates getting started with the statistical concepts.

Hope this was of any help to you.

Best regards!

In different study programs about finance, economics, and in economic computer science we felt that the problem is not only that students having a hard time to understand certian statistical methods or instruments but the entire idea of hypothesis testing. They have also typically got problems to apply inferential statistics to their actual research problem. Moreover, they tend to think that statistics is very much restricted to certain empirical questions - rather than understanding the general idea behind it. Therefore, we came up with the idea to create a course about "research methods" which includes a lot of statistics - but also gives a general framework of the use of statistics in research. I reviewed the slides a bit and I shall make them available as research paper under my profile (technical paper "Research Methods"). It is also added to this answer. You are invited to review the slides and see whether you can find some helpful ideas in them.

Patriziio, thank you so much for your answer. I agree with all your comments

Joachim, thank you so much for your answer and your slides. I'm sure that they will be very helpful.

Best regards!

Montserrat:

I guess one technique is to take the boredom out of learning about statistics, so I am attaching two links: Free Statistical Games and Easy Tutorials for Stats online. I hope you find these resources useful. I extend best wishes for every success in your research.

Debra

http://stattrek.com/

http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/statistics-games.html

I think no single teaching method/technique would help you. Actually, I tried both methods with one of my colleagues who has difficulties in understanding statistics and I failed. To me, graphical method works fine;I can cover the black areas and move on. However, this technique does not work with my colleagues.

In general, I may share some points of my own experience:

• Don't assume that students understand anything about statistics, even if they had a basic course or something like that before. In my experience, most of the students forget the basic rules of statistics all the time. So, it is better to quickly review the basics before presenting any new idea. 
• Let students explain the same concepts you have just said. In other words, don't assume that students understand what you are saying. I always see students understanding a completely different thing than what I say.
• Let students think of the problem and the solution before you present the rule. This will save your time repeating the same idea over and over again. Give students one moment of silence to think. Let them infer by themselves; or at least try.
• Repeat or re-display the same concept with different methods. As I said, no one technique with serve all students.  

This is my own experience. Please search for scientific papers that may give you more trusted results.

Best Regards,

Dear Debra, I did not know these links. Thank so much for them  As a fun way to test your knowledge is very successful, but I always doubt how far the user really knows the calculations that the software made to generate a result.

Dear Alaa, reading your answer, it seems that you've been one of my classes. By asking the question, I did not include my own experience to non condition the answers, but the way you teach and mine are very similar. Thank you for sharing your experience on this question.

Greetings to both.