Statistics anxiety and atitudes among undergraduate psychology students

The second tested over 200 students in first and second year undergraduate psychology degrees, demonstrating that the subscales of the STARS and SATS were interrelated and were affected by previous mathematics performance, awareness of statistics, and the expectation of using statistics in future careers. It was also reported attitudes and anxieties did not change substantially through the two years. Over 400 students from the United Kingdom, United States, Spain, and Austria then completed the same questionnaires.

This exploratory study showed that levels of statistics anxiety and attitudes, as well as many background factors, varied heavily between locations. A final study piloted an intervention aimed at increasing perceptions about the importance and career benefit of statistics in psychology. The implementation may have been flawed, however, as longitudinal measures showed no major effect.

Ultimately, this thesis found background factors and previous experiences as major influences on statistics anxiety and attitudes. These must be addressed to improve student learning and experiences in undergraduate psychology programmes.