Surveys of attitudes about statistics: An analysis of items

Abstract

Attitudes toward statistics are considered important outcomes of introductory statistics courses because they have been linked with student achievement and because they inform people’s lasting impressions of the discipline (Gal, Ginsburg, & Schau, 1997; Ramirez, Schau, & Emmioğlu, 2012). To chart a route forward, this study examines the original items used on survey instruments from the past 37 years to 1) provide a more robust understanding of attitudes about statistics as enacted in the literature and to 2) clarify how constructs that have used common labels (e.g. “values,” attitudes,” and affect”) have been operationalized by different surveys.

Douglas Whitaker

Associate Professor of Statistics