This paper is from Session 3E: Students’ negative attitudes towards statistics: an arduous challenge
which comes under Topic 3: Statistics education at the post-secondary level
Paper 3E1 (Tuesday 10th, 16:00-17:30)
Attitudes towards Research as a source for negative Statistics Attitudes
Presenter
- Florian Berens (University of Goettingen, Germany)
Abstract
Many Studies find negative attitudes towards statistics among undergraduates. Literature argues that these attitudes are based on negative experiences during math classes in school and a transfer of attitudes towards maths to the field of statistics. This sudy argues that attitudes towards research are a second source of negative attitudes towards statistics. Since statistics can be seen as a language in science and research undergraduates differ in their motivation to learn this language depending on the value and attitudes they attribute to research. Data from an introductory statistics course for social scientists (N ≈ 500) support an influence from concepts of the Attitudes towards Research (ATR) qustionaise on the concepts of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS).