Statistics Anxiety and Achievement in a Statistics Course among Psychology Students

Abstract

Learning about statistics presents a challenge to psychology studentswhose background in mathematics is not strong. The percentage ofstudents who fail Statistics course at the Department of Psychology inone university in Malaysia is of concern. A survey that included ameasure of statistics anxiety was conducted at the beginning of asemester among students taking a statistics course. Performancemeasures included a basic mathematic review quiz, continuousassessment mark, final examination marks, and total marks. The coursewas divided into three sections, all taught by the same instructor.Scores from 139 students were used in the analysis. Statisticsanxiety and attitude towards statistics are not significantly correlatedand both are not related to the total marks. The mathematics quizscore is a significant predictor of the total marks. The instrument formeasuring pre-course mathematics ability could be used in class as apart of the teaching strategy to improve students’ learning experience.

Keywords: statistics anxiety, academic performance, psychology students