Students' attitudes toward statistics: implications for the future

College Student Journal, Sept, 2004 by Jamie D. Mills

An examination of the cross tabulations of the gender variable provided the most interesting results. It was determined that males were more likely than females to report that they were not scared of statistics, that they can learn statistics, and they felt confident mastering statistics material. Similar results about females' negative attitudes have been discussed (Fullerton & Umphrey, 2001; Ware & Chastain, 1989) but others have reported no differences in males and females (Faghihi & Rakow, 1995; Sutarso, 1992; Waters et al., 1989). The results of this study reveal that further attention may need to be devoted to improving female attitudes about statistics particularly if their academic performance also suffers, a result found by Ware and Chastain (1989).

Finally, there could be many reasons why the students in this study revealed more positive attitudes about statistics than negative. Some of these reasons could be directly related to the statistics reform movement. First, the teaching of statistics has affected every level of education. With statistics concepts being introduced as early as the elementary level, students are less likely to dislike and not understand statistics. Second, many teachers use the computer as a tool to supplement their instruction in an effort to assist students in their statistics learning. The combination of technology with teaching statistics has offered students the opportunity to concentrate more on learning concepts instead of calculating complex formulas and losing focus of the practical meaning of results. As a result, the practical application of statistics as a science is realized. Therefore, statistics courses in the elementary and secondary level as well as an improvement in the instruction and research related to statistics education is almost certainly impacting student attitudes about statistics.

Conclusion

The reform movement to improve the teaching and learning of statistics has influenced how we teach statistics. As a result, there continues to be a need for research about student attitudes about statistics. Perhaps student attitudes have been negative in the past (Cashin & Elmore, 1997; Fullerton & Umphrey, 2001; Hopkins et al., 1996; Schutz et al., 1998; Waters et al., 1988), but the evidence in this study indicates that students are now experiencing more positive attitudes toward statistics than negative attitudes. Furthermore, important variables related to statistics achievement such as mathematics ability, statistics experience, confidence, and even gender continue to influence student attitudes. Perhaps the many changes related to the teaching and learning of statistics is making a positive impact on attitudes. With these results in mind, there is clearly much research ahead to pursue, but there is some evidence that we are progressing in the right direction.

Appendix

Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS)

1. I like statistics (affect)

2. I feel insecure when I have to do statistics problems (affect)