Measuring statistics attitudes and anxieties
Abstract
Both attitudes and anxiety have long been studied in the statistics education literature. Recently, efforts have been taken to clarify what is meant by these constructs (e.g. Chew & Dillon, 2014). Expectancy Value Theory (EVT; Eccles, 1983) is one framework for relating affective constructs to student achievement that has seen widespread use such as in the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (Ramirez et al., 2012; Schau, 2003). To clarify the relationship between statistics anxiety and attitudes, several surveys were administered to introductory statistics students including the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS; Cruise et al., 1985), a measure of opportunity cost (Flake et al., 2015), and several scales currently in development. (The data will be collected in Spring 2020.) This poster will discuss the potential relationships between EVT and statistics anxiety.
