Development and use of an instrument to measure students’ perceptions of a business statistics learning environment in higher education

Abstract

Statistics is a required subject of study in many academic disciplines, including business, education and psychology, that causes problems for many students. This has long been recognised and there have been a number of studies into students' attitudes towards statistics, particularly statistical anxiety. However, none of these studies investigated the classroom learning environment in relation to students' attitudes towards statistics. This paper describes the development and validation of two new instruments, the Business Statistics Computer Laboratory Environment Inventory and the Attitude towards Business Statistics instrument. The former measures appropriate aspects of the learning environment of a computer-based statistics class, whilst the latter measures students' attitudes towards business statistics. The instruments were administered to undergraduate business students at a university in Southern California. When exploratory factor analysis was carried out, it was found that the items of both instruments loaded onto their a priori scales. All the scales exhibited both internal reliability and discriminant validity. Correlation analysis between the scales of the two instruments demonstrated a strong relationship between aspects of the learning environment and students' attitudes towards business statistics.

Relationship between Statistics Anxiety and Academic Dishonesty: A Comparison between Learning Environments in Social Sciences

“…In addition, a learning environment includes the students' personal characteristics and situations, e.g., their motivation to acquire knowledge, their active participation in the learning environment, and their attitudes toward subject knowledge and course delivery. Research studies have shown that learning environments affect academic achievement [47]. In addition, the scholarly research differentiates among F2F, POE, and ERT.…”

The State of Statistics Education Research in Client Disciplines: Themes and Trends Across the University

“…There is also some evidence that online homework has little effect on student performance in business statistics, after controlling for instructor effects (Palocsay and Stevens 2008). Two assessment instruments have recently been developed specifically for measuring student attitudes toward statistics in the business classroom: Business Statistics Computer Laboratory Environment Inventory (BSCLEI) and the Attitude toward Business Statistics Instrument (ABSI) (Nguyen, Newby, and Skordi 2015). Preliminary analysis of these scales suggested that instructors should use relevant and meaningful course examples and encourage students to solve problems in class using software and collaborate with others to improve the classroom learning environment.…”

“…This suggests that course performance is a primary measure of student success in business statistics. The BSCLEI and ABSI assessments represent a step away from using course performance and toward a more common assessment tool, however, these are relatively new instruments (Nguyen, Newby, and Skordi 2015).…”

Architecture students and research courses: are they aligned? Students’ attitude towards research courses

“…Kennedy et al, 2020;Tseng et al, 2013; see Aguilera & Perales-Palacios, 2020 for a meta-analysis), towards statistics (e.g. Ashaari et al, 2011;Coetzee & van der Merwe, 2010;DeVaney, 2010;Griffith et al, 2012;Hannigan et al, 2014;Nguyen et al, 2015;Strobl et al, 2010;Zan & Martino, 2007) and towards research courses (e.g. Deepa, 2014;Murtonen, 2005;Oguan et al, 2014;Papanastasiou, 2005Papanastasiou, , 2014Shaukat et al, 2014;Siemens et al, 2010).…”