Stat Anxiety, Self-efficacy & Motivation given student perception of math ability for learning statKeywords: Assessment, Higher Education, Student learning, TeachingPresenting Author:Tine Nielsen, University of Copenhagen, DenmarkThe aim of the study was, from a criterion validity perspective, to conduct an initial exploration of the associations between student perceptions of adequacy of mathematical knowledge for learning statistics and expectations to need statistics as a psychologist on the one side, and statistical anxiety, attitudes towards statistics, and statistics course specific self-efficacy and motivation on the other side. The student sample consisted of 169 freshmen psychology students at the University of Copenhagen (77% of year cohort) exactly one month into their bachelor program and one month into their first statisticscourse. Data was collected at the end of the 5th lecture in Statistics. The instruments included were the Attitudes and Relationship to Statistics Inventory Revised (HFS-R; Nielsen & Kreiner, 2018), the Specific Academic Learning Self-efficacy and Specific Academic Exam Self-efficacy scales (SAL-SE and SAE-SE; Nielsen et al., 2017), and the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation subscales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (IM and EM; Nielsen, submitted 2018; Pintrich et al., 1991). Further, a package of demographic and other survey questions included questions on perception of adequacy of mathematical knowledge for learning statistics (more than adequate, adequate, not quite adequate, entirely inadequate) as well as expectance to need statistics in their future work as psychologists (yes, maybe, no). Analyses were conducted as two sets of simple one-way analyses of variance in order to detect patterns across the mean values on the statistical anxiety, attitude, self-efficacy and motivation scales for students with different perceptions of adequacy of mathematical knowledge for learning statistics and different expectations to need statistics as a psychologist. In concordance with a-priory expectations, results showed that as the perception of adequacy decreased: the mean scores on test and class anxiety, fear of asking for help, and interpretation anxiety increased systematically, while mean scores on worth of statistics, specific academic learning self-efficacy, and specific academic exam self-efficacy decreasedsystematically (F-test significant in all cases). Further, and most interestingly, in the case of the statistical anxiety and attitude scales this relationship was upheld by solely the female students – not just because there were more females, as the pattern is totally absent for males when stratifying by gender. For intrinsic and extrinsic motivation no clear (or significant) patterns were found. Almost identical patterns were found when student expectations to need statistics in their future work as psychologist decreased. A cautious interpretation might be that it appears that the male students’ statisticalanxiety and attitudes are independent from their perceptions of adequacy of mathematical knowledge for learning statistics and whether they think they will need statistics in their future work, while female students adhere to a more stereotypical and expected pattern. Replications with future cohorts of psychology students are needed to explore findings further and possibly solidify them. Additional studies with students of other academic disciplines should also be undertaken as to investigate whether the findings are discipline specific or cross-disciplinary. Further, longitudinal studies could shed light on the (in)stability of the patterns found.

References

Nielsen, T. (in progress, abstract submitted for SIG04 conference,2018). The intrinsic and extrinsic motivation subscales of the adapted Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire: A Rasch-based construct validity study.

Nielsen, T.  & Kreiner, S. (2018). Statistical Anxiety and Attitudes Towards Statistics: Development of a Comprehensive Danish Instrument. Abstract and presentation at the 7^th International conference on Probabilistic Models for Measurement in , University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, 17-19 January 2018.

Nielsen, T.; Makransky, G.; Louison Vang, M & Dammeyer, J. (2017). How specific is specific self-efficacy: a construct validity study using Rasch measurement models. Studies in  Educational Evaluation, 57,87-97.

Pintrich, P.R., Smith, D.A.F., Garcia, T., McKeachie, W.J. (1991). A Manual for the Use of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Technical Report No. 91-8-004. The Regents of The University of Michigan.