Attitudes Matter! A New Instrument in Motivational Attitudes Toward Statistics / Data Science
Abstract
Attitudes matter in mathematics education, especially in fields like statistics, which sometimes suffer from a poor reputation, and data science. Understanding the relationship between both student and instructor attitudes and student achievement is crucial for improving instruction. Through an NSF grant (DUE-2013392), our research team is developing two new sets of attitudinal instruments - one in statistics and one in data science. In addition to student surveys, we are developing instruments to measure the learning environment and instructor attitudes. We will share our rationale for developing these six instruments, the theoretical framework for these instruments, Expectancy Value Theory, and we will discuss recent results and psychometric properties of piloted items. Statistics and data science instructors and educational researchers are invited to get involved in data collection.
