From Anxiety to Confidence: Exploring the Measurement of Statistics Confidence and its Relationship with Experience, Knowledge and Competence within Psychology Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Acknowledgements:The authors are thankful to all the participants who took part in the study. Funding: This project was funded by an Oxford Brookes University Team Teaching FellowshipConflicts of interest: None declared. Running header: Statistics confidence and competence in psychology students Statement of contribution:All authors contributed to creation of the study, implementation, analysis and write up. All authors contributed to and agreed on the final manuscript Word count: 4477, excluding abstract, tables and references Statistics confidence and competence in psychology students 2 From anxiety to confidence: Exploring the measurement of statistics confidence and its relationship with experience, knowledge, and competence within psychology undergraduate students ABSTRACT Psychology students often feel anxious about learning statistics, which can impact their performance. However, less research has explored statistics confidence, which may be an important way to reduce the negative connotations of associating statistics with anxiety. We aimed to explore whether modifying an existing measure of statistics anxiety (the STARS scale) and reframing the questions so students rated their confidence instead, would be associated with competence, prior knowledge and experience. A total of 104 undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire comprising these measures. The factor structure of the STARS scale was predominantly maintained when wording was changed to measure confidence instead of anxiety. Confidence was related to experience and competence, but not knowledge.Two aspects of confidence (interpretation of statistics, and exam confidence) plus initial experiences were significant predictors of competence. Confidence was a mediator of the relationship between experience and competence. These findings suggest statistics confidence can be measured in a similar way to anxiety, and highlight areas that could be addressed to increase competence. Future research is needed to explore the relationship between statistics anxiety and statistics confidence, as well as to determine their individual impact on performance in assessments. Statistics confidence and competence in psychology students3 From anxiety to confidence: Exploring the measurement of statistics confidence and its relationship with experience, knowledge, and competence within psychology undergraduate students

Artificial intelligence in psychology: How can we enable psychology students to accept and use artificial intelligence?

“…Consequently, in the context of complex and ambiguous decision-making scenarios, the inclusion of perceived knowledge as a predictor of behavioral intention can be recommended. Paltoglou et al (2019), who investigated students' confidence regarding statistics, emphasize that instead of focusing on knowledge, it is even more important to foster students' perceived competence. They indicate experience and perceived confidence as decisive factors.…”

“…Based on existing research findings, both, contextual and personal, variables may be influential. For instance, a student's general selfefficacy (e.g., Rho et al, 2014), computer self-efficacy (e.g., Scherer et al, 2019), or perceived competence (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1980;Paltoglou et al, 2019) probably have an influence. In their meta-analysis investigating the acceptance of health IT by clinicians, Holden and Karsh (2010) also emphasized the impact of self-efficacy.…”

Comparison Between Peer Learning and Conventional Methods in Biostatistics Course Among Postgraduate Nursing Students’ Final Score, Statistics and Test Anxiety: A Quasi-experimental Study with a Control Group

“…Statistics anxiety is a condition in which the person experiences extreme worry, unpleasant thoughts, mental confusion, stress, and psychological arousal when confronted with concepts, issues, educational situations, and contexts related to statistical evaluation (15). Students with higher levels of anxiety in learning statistics often score lower in this course (16).…”

Psychometric evaluations of eight attitudes toward quantitative methods measures.

“…Another issue with some of these measures includes a relative lack of rigor during validation, such as having small sample sizes when conducting dimensionality analyses (Rogness, 1993; Sutarso, 1992). Lastly, Paltoglou, Morys-Carter, and Davies (2019) used measures of statistics confidence (created by rewording the statistics anxiety rating scale by Hanna, Shevlin, and Dempster (2008)), experience of learning statistics, and competence with statistics. Whereas Paltoglou et al (2019) provided psychometric information of the measures used, the scales are not disseminated within the article and thus unavailable for use.…”

“…Lastly, Paltoglou, Morys-Carter, and Davies (2019) used measures of statistics confidence (created by rewording the statistics anxiety rating scale by Hanna, Shevlin, and Dempster (2008)), experience of learning statistics, and competence with statistics. Whereas Paltoglou et al (2019) provided psychometric information of the measures used, the scales are not disseminated within the article and thus unavailable for use. Given these main drawbacks of little evidence for reliability or validity, length, lack of statistical rigor during validation, and lack of availability, many of these measures are not ideal for instructors or researchers, leaving a need for alternative measures that are readily available, brief, and psychometrically sound.…”