Statistics Anxiety among Postgraduate Students

Abstract

Most postgraduate programmes, that have research components, require students to take at least one course of research statistics. Not all postgraduate programmes are science based, there are a significant number of postgraduate students who are from the social sciences that will be taking statistics courses, as they try to complete their postgraduate studies. As postgraduate students come from varied backgrounds, from those who have left school for more than a decade, to those who just completed their undergraduate studies, postgraduate statistics course may be one of the toughest to teach. These students come into the course with preconceived thoughts and attitude, which would either increase their anxiety towards statistics, or decrease their anxiety. Previous studies have shown that students reported high level of statistics anxiety during a statistics course. Unfortunately, there are limited studies on statistics anxiety in the Malaysian postgraduate population. Therefore, this study aims to determine the level of anxiety towards statistics among postgraduate student. This study also aims to explore factors that are associated with statistics anxiety among postgraduate students at the Faculty of Education, UKM. As a secondary outcome, this study explores the type of evaluation preferred by postgraduate students in relation to a statistics course. All postgraduate students who registered for the Research Statistics course at the Faculty of Education, National University of Malaysia, during the study period were invited to participate in the study. A total of 141 students completed the questionnaire and was included in this paper. This study found that a significant (21.7%) of the students surveyed have anxiety in at least one of the statistics anxiety domain, either in anxiety towards class activities, attitude towards class, attitude towards Mathematics or self-perception of ability to perform in statistics. This study found that ethnicity was associated with higher anxiety towards class activities, with the Malays being more anxious compared to the non-Malays. Both ethnicity and bachelor's degree were associated with attitude towards class and attitude towards Mathematics. For these two domains, the male students and students from non-science based bachelor's degree, showed more anxiety compared to female students. Self-perception of ability to perform in statistics was not associated with any socio-demographic factors included in this study. Students in this study overwhelmingly preferred individual assignment as an evaluation method, followed by mid-semester examination, and the final semester examination. Least preferred were online participation and presentation.

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“…Follow-up discriminant analysis revealed that on average, male graduate students reported higher levels of anxiety as compared to females particularly in regard to asking for help from an instructor or a peer. This finding supports those of Koh and Zawi (2014) and Hsiao and Chiang (2011) that male postgraduate students exhibited higher levels of anxiety toward statistics than did female postgraduate students.…”

“…Similarly, Rodarte-Luna and Sherry ( 2008) reported a relatively weak but significant difference between women and men in relation to statistics anxiety wherein women were more anxious than men. However, Koh and Zawi (2014) reported that among postgraduate students women reported lower levels of statistics anxiety than did their male counterparts. In a cross-cultural study using Turkish and American student samples, Baloğlu et al (2011) reported that even after differences in grade point average and age were accounted for, significant gender and culture differences remained with respect to some but not all dimensions of statistics anxiety.…”

Pengaruh Kecemasan Statistik Terhadap Berpikir Literasi Statistis Mahasiswa Bimbingan Konseling IAIN Batusangkar

“…Literasi statistis menjadi sangat penting (Steinberger, 2020) karena sering digunakan dalam kehidupan manusia yang banyak berhubungan dengan gambar, analisis dan interpretasi data (Afdal et al, 2019). Khusus pada dunia akademik, statistika mempunyai peran penting pada aspek penelitian (Koh & Zawi, 2014). Oleh karena itu, statistika dipelajari pada hampir semua bidang keilmuan seperti sainstek, kesehatan, hukum dan sosial (Cui et al, 2019) serta menjadi mata kuliah wajib untuk tingkat sarjana di Indonesia (Alizamar et al, 2018).…”

An investigation into undergraduate students’ attitude towards statistics: A case of a university in Ghana

“…It is a course that every student is supposed to possess adequate knowledge due to its many applications in life. Consequently, it is increasingly gaining a high level of recognition as a course of study in almost all academic programmes in the universities especially in the area of project or thesis writing, since these are requirements in all institutions of higher learning for the award of degrees (Koh and Mohd Khairi, 2014;. Therefore, demonstrating high knowledge of research writing would equally require a sound and adequate knowledge in statistics for analysis and discussion of research results.…”