Students' Attitude Towards Statistics

IDL - International Digital Library Of
Educational Research
Volume 1, Issue 6, June 2017 Available at: www.dbpublications.org
International e-Journal For Education And Research-2017
Students Attitude Towards Statistics

NONDITA PHUKAN, Research Scholar, Assam Down Town Univresity, Guwahati
Dr. MANASH PROTIM KASHYAP, Assistant professor, Assam Down Town University,
Guwahati, Assam
Dr. MANOJ KUMAR BHOWAL, Associate Professor, J.B. College., Jorhat, Assam
Abstract: The study used the Survey a part in every colleges curriculum, for it is
Attitudes toward Statistics (SATS) devised given in a series of courses. Despite of the
by Candace Schau to investigate the students familiarity in the subject, there are
attitudes toward statistics and the a number of students who dislike statistics.
relationship of those attitudes to the They believed that it is a complicated field
students sex, course and performance. because it is related to mathematics,
Participants responses are analyzed through probability, computers and statistical
mean, t-test and pearson correlation. programs.
Findings revealed that students have positive
In a society where statistics is generally
attitude toward statistics, though some
respected and highly regarded but relatively
display a negative attitude on statistics .The
rarely understood, knowledge of statistics
students have different attitudes when
can make a difference in ones quality of
clustered according to their sex, course and
performance. A pattern on the students life. However, there is one more important
performance and attitudes was revealed, the issue to becoming a statistically able
more positive the attitude is, the higher the individual than just taking the required
performance. statistics course, passing the subject and
then forgetting it- and this is identifying
INTRODUCTION those individuals who have negative
attitudes to statistics and gain a better
Statistics had been believed to start at understanding of what specifically
around 1749.In the early times statistics was contributes to their attitudes toward
used primarily to gather information about a Statistics.
state but today it is considered as one of the
most important tools not only for gathering Hence, more works are to be accomplished
information but also as an inductive method in order to help students turn their negative
in research methodology. Statistics had been attitude into a more positive attitude toward
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statistics. Continuing development program statistics at the beginning and at the end of
is an important strategy to remedy the lack the semester.
of students statistical content and
A mean score was employed to conclude the
knowledge and therefore it is important to
respondents feedbacks toward each attitude
motivate them to participate actively in
items given in the survey form. A high score
every activity so they will understand the
importance of statistics and how applicable shows a positive attitude. Assessment of
it is in their future careers. interpretation about the students attitude
toward the statistics is categorized as
OBJECTIVE positive if the mean score is 4.50 to 7.00,
neutral for 3.51 to 4.49 and negative for
The objective of this research is to study the scores 0.00to 3.50.
attitude of the students toward statistics. The
main questions are A sample of 345 graduate students of
Dibrugarh university participated in the
1) What is the students attitude study . This sample included 178 commerce
toward statistics? students, 57 Economics students and 109
2) Do students differ in their Education students. The Survey Attitude
attitudes toward statistics across Toward Statistics (SATS) created by
discipline? Candace Schau in 1990 is used.
3) What is the students
performance in Statistics? The SATS measures six attitude component:
Affect, Effort, Cognitive Competence,
METHODOLOGY value, Difficulty and Interest.
This study was carried out on the Data analysis
undergraduate non majoring statistics
students of three subjects viz Commerce, The data are analyzed using the mean, t-test
Economics, and Education enrolled in and pearson correlation.
Dibrugarh University. SATS-36 is used to
Table-1 contains the demographic
collect information of students in the
characteristics of the 345 students who
beginning of their semester (in which the
completed the administration of the survey.
paper exists) and at the end of the respective
semester.SATS-36 has a seven-point Table-1.Table for Demographic information
response scale (1=strongly disagree,4=
neither disagree nor agree, 7= strongly Variables Frequen Percenta
agree). The survey is available in pre and cy ge (%)
post versions to measure attitude toward Sex Male 191 55.36


Female 154 44.64 Value 5.10 5.36
Total 345 100.00
Course Commer 178 51.59 Interest 4.50 4.57
ce
Educatio 109 31.59 Overall
n
Economi 57 16.52
cs
Total 345 100.00
Performan Very 20 5.80 The above table shows that students have
ce good positive attitude toward Effort, , Interest
Good 153 44.35
component in pre and post test. But students
Fair 130 37.68 display neutral attitude on value component
in both the test. On Affect component
Pass 42 12.17
students display neutral attitude in pre test
Total 345 100 but positive attitude in post- test. But again
students display negative attitude on
difficulty component in pre test and neutral
Table-2 provides the overall attitude toward attitude in post test.
statistics by considering the 6 component of
the SATS instrument for pre and post
version.
Table-3 describe the attitudes of the students
Table-1 Overall attitude toward Statistics. to statistics when their course, sex and
performance are considered.
Component Mean
Pre- post-
test test Table-3 Attitude of the students toward
statistics by the selected variables.
Effort 5.51 5.55
Affect 4.43 4.71

Variables Mean
Cognitive 4.56 4.77
Competence Pre Post
3.49 3.53
Difficulty Sex 4.5848 4.6176
4.47 4.17 Male


Female 4.5180 4.5439 performance of the students in the subject
simply described their attitudes . The
varia t Mea students who have high grades have a higher
bles d. Sig n positive attitudes as compared to those who
f (2- diff have lower grades.
tail eren
Table-4 Difference in the Attitude of the
ed) ce
students toward statistics for pre test.
Sex 31 .05 .066
Table-4 shows that there is no significant
4. 9 82
difference between the attitudes of male and
38
female students toward statistics.(sig value,
9 .059>.05)
3
Table-5 Difference in the Attitudes of the
Course 4.6096 4.7978 students toward statistics for post test
Commerce
Economics 4.3756 4.4679
Education 4.3876 4.4391
Performance 5.493827 5.22629

very good
Good 4.482107 4.555745
Fair 3.550387 3.622201
Pass 2.732026 2.680538

Vari t d s M
able . i e
From the above table, we have found that s f g a
male and female students have positive ( n
attitude to statistics in both the test. Again 2
Commerce students have positive attitude to - d
statistics but Education and Economics t i
students have neutral Attitude toward a f
statistics for pre test and post test. The i f


l e Table-7 correlation between attitude toward
e r statistics in pre and post survey for male and
d e female.
) n
c
e Sex(male) Correlation Sig (2-tailed)
between pre
Sex - 34 .241 -0.7368 and post
1 3 Effort .512 .000
. Affect .204 .011
1 c.c .399 .000
7 Difficulty .116 .153
Value .331 .000
Interest .366 .000
Overall .512 .000
From the above table we see that there is no
significant difference between the attitudes Sex (Female)
of male and female toward statistics in post- Effort .561 .000
test(sig .241>.05). Affect .313 .000
Cognitive .417 .000
Table-6 Correlation between students competence
attitude toward statistic in pre and post Difficulty -.084 .249
survey for different subject.
Value .477 .000
Course Correlation Sig (2- Interest .473 .000
between pre tailed)
Overall .473 .000
and post
Commerce .480 .000
Education .594 .000 From the above table we see that in all
Economics .264 .073 component except Difficulty correlation are
significant. In difficulty, correlation is
insignificant(.153>.05 and .249>.05).
From this table we see that in commerce and Therefore we may say that there is positive
Education, correlation is significant.( correlation between attitude toward statistics
.000<.05).But in Economics correlation is pre and post according to male and female.
insignificant.(.073>.05)


Conclusion: The present study examined the Again a significant relationship between the
responses of the 345 students with majors attitude and course and sex of the students
from Commerce, Economics, and was also noted. Knowing the attitude of the
Education. The first question is to determine students would bring a clear view that sex
the attitudes of the students toward statistics. and course can predict attitude.
Overall the attitude of the students toward
statistics is positive. When the attitudes Undergraduate students usually have a
components were analyzed, the students negative attitude toward statistics. Those
displayed a negative attitudes on the who believed that they have a little
difficulty component. Some students find knowledge and skills in statistics have
trouble understanding the subject. Those
the subject difficult because they simply
who find the subject complicated and do not
lack the knowledge needed to understand the
spend time learning it, sees statistics
subject. Some students spend few hours
difficult. The students who have fun
studying statistics and others do not really
appreciate the subject and some simply learning the subject, become interested to it.
ignore it. Some students get frustrated over It was observed that student sex and course
statistics test in class, since statistics is a can predict performance and those having a
complicated subject, that it requires a great positive attitude toward the subject perform
deal of discipline, highly technical and it is better than those who have negative attitude
on it. Knowing the students capability in
not the subject quickly learned by most
people. understanding the lesson is needed, the
teachers may use this in developing a
Male and Female students display positive teaching technique that will enhance
attitude toward statistics. The attitude of students performance in statistics.
male and female students do not differ
significantly. Reference
Finally, a difference was seen on the

students attitudes when grouped by course.
1. Schau,C., Stevens,J., Dauphinee,T.L.
The Commerce students have more positive
and Del Vecchio,A.(1995): The
attitude compared to Economics and
development and validation of the
Education students. The students of
survey of attitudes toward statistics.
Economics and Education have little interest
Educational and Psychological
on the subject and they do not see the value
Measurement.
of the subject in their career. The students
with better performance have more positive
attitude toward statistics.


2. Tempelaar,D.T., Van Der
Loeff,S.S., Gijselaers,W.H.(2007): A 4. Vanhoof,S., Kuppens,S.,
Structural Equation model analyzing Sotos,A.E.C., Verschaffel,L. and
the relationship of students attitudes Onghena,P. : Measuring Statistics
toward statistics, prior reasoning Attitudes: Structure of the survey of
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Statistics Education Research Education Research Journal (2011).
Journal
5. Garfield,J. and Ben-Zvi,D.(2007) :
3. Noraidah Sahari, Hairulliza How students learn Statistics
Mohamad Judi,Hazura Mohamed, revisited:A current review of
Tengku Meriam Tengku research on teaching and learning
Wook.Students Attitude toward statistics. International Statistical
Statistics Course. Review.

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International e-Journal For Education And Research-2017