The Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale: A Construct Validity Study

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to investigate evidence of the validity of Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale (SATS) scores and their relationship with scores from two other measures of attitudes toward statistics, the Attitude Toward Statistics Scale (ATS) and the Statistics Attitude Survey. The pre- and postcourse responses of 342 graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in inferential statistics courses at a large midwestern university were analyzed. Internal consistency reliability estimates were greater than .90 for total scores and greater than .70 for subscale scores for all instruments. Regression analyses confirmed the importance of SATS subscale scores over and above demographic variables in a theoretical model predicting statistics course achievement. Factor analyses suggested that both the ATS and the SATS have two domains, which is contrary to the four-factor solution proposed by the developers of the SATS.

Evaluating an Active Learning Approach to Teaching Introductory Statistics: A Classroom Workbook Approach

“…The nine item value subscale assessed students' beliefs about the usefulness of statistics in their lives (e.g., Statistics is worthless; Statistics should be a required part of my professional training) (pre test α = .85, post test α = .58). Although our reliability coefficient for the value subscale on the post test is low in our data, the scale has been shown to have adequate internal reliability in previous research (Cashin and Elmore, 2005;Hilton, Schau, and Olsen, 2004). All 36 SATS items use a 7-point likert scale (e.g., 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree).…”

“…Other researchers have also found mixed results. In their validation study, Cashin and Elmore (2005) used the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale (SATS), the Attitude Toward Statistics Scale (ATS), and the Statistics Attitude Survey (SAS) to measure 342 students' attitudes toward statistics both before and after completing a statistics course. The SATS and the ATS each have subscales that measure different kinds of attitudes towards statistics (e.g., Affect, Cognitive Competence, Difficulty, Value, Effort, Course, and Field).…”

The Role of Previous Experience and Attitudes Toward Statistics in Statistics Assessment Outcomes among Undergraduate Psychology Students

“…There have been several instruments developed to assess attitudes towards statistics: the Attitudes Towards Statistics scale (ATS : Wise 1985), the Statistics Attitude Survey (SAS: Roberts and Saxe 1982) and the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS : Schau Stevens Dauphinee and Del Vecchio 1995). The differences between these instruments are not the focus of the present study but it is interesting to note that a relationship between statistics assessment outcomes and attitudes has been found in previous research regardless of the instrument employed (Cashin and Elmore 2005;Rhoads and Hubele, 2000;Roberts and Bilderback 1980;Roberts and Reese 1987;Shultz and Koshino, 1998;Tremblay Gardner and Heipel 2000;Vanhoof et al 2006;Waters Martelli Zakrajsek and Popovich 1988;Waters Martelli Zakrajsek and Popovich 1989;Wise, 1985).…”

Initial External Validation of REGRESS in Public Health Graduate Students

“…For the postcourse quiz, UM students scored significantly higher for items 6 (predicting beyond data) and 10 (assessing strength of correlation), but significantly lower for 12 (44%) items. The most notable differences where UM students scored much lower than the Mayo cohort most often involved inference from graphs (items 2,3,13,14,15,17,18,19). The UM cohort also struggled with four other items (16, assessing independence; 20, predicting colinearity; 25, diagnosing interaction; 27, diagnosing confounding), not able to match the response of Mayo students postcourse.…”

“…Much of the assessment tools published in statistics education predict performance based on attitudes, anxiety, previous courses, gender, etc., [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] but do not assess the efficacy of learned material or clarity of concepts. There are a few manuscripts examining the effectiveness of statistics courses to verify that students with broad backgrounds leave their programs understanding the fundamentals.…”