Motivational Attitudes in Statistics and Data Science
Abstract
Attitudes matter in mathematics education, especially in fields like statistics which sometimes suffer from a poor reputation; understanding the relationship between both student and instructor attitudes and student achievement is crucial for improving mathematics education. Through an NSF IUSE grant (Developing Validated Instruments to Measure Student/Faculty Attitudes in Undergraduate Statistics and Data Science Education; DUE-2013392), our research team is developing a new set of attitudinal instruments, the Student and Instructor Surveys of Motivational Attitudes toward Statistics (S- and I-SOMAS), to quantify these attitudes. Additionally, we are developing instruments to measure the learning environment and an analogous set of instruments to measure attitudes toward data science. We will share our rationale for developing these six instruments, and we will discuss the psychometric properties of the most recent S-SOMAS pilot survey administration. We will also present the theoretical framework for these instruments, Expectancy Value Theory (Eccles et al., 1983). Statistics and data science instructors and educational researchers who are interested in being involved with data collection in future phases of the project are encouraged to contact the authors.
