Education Science Students’ Statistics Anxiety: Developing and Analyzing a Scale for Measuring their Worry, Avoidance, and Emotionality Cognitions

Abstract

Current instruments for assessing university students’ statistics anxiety prevailingly emphasize the affective construct component. In order to unfold the construct in a more exhaustive and differentiated manner, a scale for measuring university students’ worry, avoidance, and emotionality cognitions was developed. In two samples of education science majors the present pilot study aimed at analyzing the scale’s psychometric properties and at gaining preliminary validation results. Principal component analyses led to the formation of a unidimensional scale which appeared to be sufficiently reliable. Its relations to domain-specific self-belief and background variables turned out as theoretically expected – thus, for the time being the scale should claim criterion validity.

The Turkish Adaptation of the Statistics Anxiety Scale for Graduate Students

“…In this study, the SAS developed by Faber et al (2018) for graduate students was adapted into Turkish. The construct validity of SAS was tested with EFA and CFA; and parallel analysis method was also used in deciding about the number of factors in the scale.…”

“…Therefore, a Turkish scale usable in determining graduate students' statistics anxiety was needed. In this context the present study aims to adapt the Statistics Anxiety Scale (SAS) developed by Faber et al (2018) for graduate students into Turkish.…”

“…The research data were collected through SAS-which was developed by Faber et al (2018) and which this study aims to adapt into Turkish. The scale is in four-pointed Likert type and it contains 17 items.…”

Predicting education science students’ statistics anxiety: The role of prior experiences within a framework of domain-specific motivation constructs

“…The scale's reliability was acceptable (Cronbach's a = .72). In Sample 2, to improve the instrument's content validity and reliability, an extended version with eight items was used (Faber et al, 2018). Reliability was acceptable (Cronbach's a = .75).…”

“…Statistics anxiety. A 17-item scale was developed to measure a student's worry, avoidance, and emotionality cognitions concerning statistical demands (Faber et al, 2018). Each item was rated on a 4-point scale referring to a representative range of statistically relevant task features, course situations, and examination procedures that students would typically encounter in their undergraduate or graduate program (e.g., "It would be difficult for me to discuss statistical content adequately in my papers").…”