Attitudes Toward Statistics and Their Relationship with Short- and Long-Term Exam Results

Figures & data

Table 1: Internal Consistency (Cronbach alphas) for the two subscales of the ATS scale

Study	Sample size	Course subscale		Field subscale
		Adm. 1	Adm. 2	Adm. 1	Adm. 2
Aldogan and Aseeri, 2003	178	0.92		0.90
Elmore and Lewis, 19911	58	0.90	0.82	0.90	0.92
Elmore et al., 1993	289	0.90	0.90	0.90	0.93
Rhoads and Hubele, 2000	63 (Adm. 1) 61 (Adm. 2)	0.77	0.85	0.89	0.90
Shultz and Koshino, 1998 (sample 1)	36	0.85	0.92	0.96	0.96
Shultz and Koshino, 1998 (sample 2)	38	0.93	0.89	0.90	0.92
Waters et al., 1998	302	0.90	0.90	0.83	0.86
Wise, 1985	92	0.90		0.92

Note 1: “Adm.” (second row) stands for “administration”. Most studies include two administrations, namely one before and one after the statistics course.

Note 2: Shultz and Koshino (1998) include two samples. The first sample contains undergraduate students, the second sample graduate students (see the Appendix for more information).

Table 2: Mean scores (and standard deviations) for the two subscales of the Attitude Toward Statistics scale

Study	Sample size	Course subscale		Field subscale
		Adm. 1	Adm. 2	Adm. 1	Adm. 2
Undergraduate
Elmore et al., 1993	289	24.1 (7.8)	22.1 (8.5)	79.4 (9.5)	80.2 (11.1)
Mvududu, 2003(sample 1)	120	34.9 (6.0)		79.5 (8.9)
Mvududu, 2003(sample 2)	95	28.9 (8.0)		74.0 (13.1)
Shultz and Koshino, 1998 (sample 1)	36	23.3 (6.5)	24.0 (8.8)	74.5 (11.8)	74.3 (11.7)
Waters et al., 1988	212	28.3	30.2
Graduate
Elmore and Lewis, 1991	58	30.5 (7.4)	33.1 (6.3)	79.0 (9.8)	80.5 (10.9)
DAndrea and Waters, 2002	17	29.1 (9.0)	35.2 (5.7)	84.9 (9.2)	86.6 (6.7)
Shultz and Koshino, 1998 (sample 2)	38	29.8 (8.9)	32.5 (7.1)	81.1 (9.2)	81.3 (9.6)

Note: Waters et al. (1988) do not provide standard deviations.

Table 3: Correlations between ATS and first year exam results

Study	Sample size	Course subscale		Field subscale
		Adm. 1	Adm. 2	Adm. 1	Adm. 2
Shultz and Koshino, 1998 (sample 1)	36	0.06 (ns)	0.45 (p < 0.05)	0.16 (ns)	0.43 (p < 0.05)
Shultz and Koshino, 1998 (sample 2)	38	0.13 (ns)	0.34 (p < 0.05)	0.13 (ns)	0.08 (ns)
Rhoads and Hubele, 2000	63 (Adm. 1) 61 (Adm. 2)	0.29 (p < 0.05)	0.29 (p < 0.05)	ns	ns
Waters et al., 1988	302	0.20 (p < 0.05)	0.42 (p < 0.05)	0.07 (ns)	0.17 (p < 0.05)
Wise 1985	70	0.27 (p < 0.05)		−0.04 (ns)

Note1: None of the authors report exact p‐values. (“ns” stands for “not significant”)

Note2: Rhoads and Hubele (2000) do not provide exact correlation values for the Field subscale.

Table 4: Overview of the different measures and sample sizes

Year	ATS	Statistics exam result	General exam result
96 – 97	1^st administration (October 1996) (n = 264)	1^st year (n = 234)	1^st year (n = 234)
97 – 98	2^nd administration (October 1997) (n = 127)	2^nd year (n = 102)	2^nd year (n = 102)
99 – 00		3^rd year (group work) (n = 78)	3^rd year (n = 78)
00 – 01		(no statistics course)	4^th year (n = 74)
01 – 02		5^th year (Dissertation grade) (n = 72)	5^th year (Courses grade) (n = 72)

Note: The number of participants mentioned for the exam results refers to the participants who have a score on the first administration of the ATS as well as on the exams.

Table 5: Correlations between ATS scores and statistics exam results/dissertation grade

Statistics exam	1^st administration			2^nd administration			Statistics exam
	N	Course	Field	N	Course	Field	N	1^st year
1^st year	234	0.33 (p < 0.001)	0.15 (p = 0.02)	127	0.47 (p < 0.001)	0.20 (p = 0.03)	127	1
2^nd year	102	0.23 (p = 0.02)	0.14 (p = 0.17)	115	0.31 (p < 0.001)	0.20 (p = 0.04)	115	0.45 (p < 0.001)
3^rd year	78	−0.03 (p = 0.79)	−0.01 (p = 0.94)	88	0.22 (p = 0.04)	0.07 (p = 0.53)	88	0.26 (p = 0.01)
5^th year	72	0.09 (p = 0.44)	0.04 (p = 0.75)	83	0.03 (p = 0.78)	0.23 (p = 0.04)	83	0.19 (p = 0.08)

Note: Numbers in bold indicate significant values at the 0.001 level.

Table 6: Correlations between ATS scores and general exam results

General exam	1^st administration			2^nd administration			General exam
	N	Course	Field	N	Course	Field	N	1^st year
1^st year	234	0.16 (p = 0.02)	0.07 (p = 0.26)	127	0.17 (p = 0.06)	0.12 (p = 0.20)	127	1
2^nd year	102	0.01 (p = 0.91)	−0.03 (p = 0.79)	115	0.09 (p = 0.32)	0.03 (p = 0.76)	115	0.42 (p < 0.001)
3^rd year	78	−0.01 (p = 0.92)	0.07 (p = 0.57)	88	0.08 (p = 0.44)	0.16 (p = 0.14)	88	0.48 (p < 0.001)
4^th year	74	0.13 (p = 0.28)	0.17 (p = 0.15)	84	0.04 (p = 0.75)	0.13 (p = 0.23)	84	−0.01 (p = 0.96)
5^th year (courses)	72	−0.01 (p = 0.95)	0.01 (p = 0.95)	83	−0.04 (p = 0.75)	0.14 (p = 0.23)	83	0.46 (p < 0.001)

Note: Numbers in bold indicate significant values at the .001 level.

Table

Study	Sample	# Admin	n	(Under)graduate	Field of Study	Remarks
Wise 1985	1	1	92		Education	Original article ATS
	2	2	70 70		Education
Roberts and Reese 1987	1	1	280	Undergraduate		Also administration of another scale to measure attitudes toward statistics, the Statistics Attitutde Survey (SAS; Roberts and Bilderback 1980. ATS is treated as one scale in this study.
Waters et al. 1988	1	2	302	Undergraduate	Variety of majors (mainly psychology)	Also administration of SAS. Only 212 respondents were measured on both occasions.
Elmore and Lewis 1991	1	2	58	Graduate	Variety of majors
Elmore et al. 1993	1	2	289	Undergraduate	Variety of majors
Shultz and Koshino 1998	1 2	2 2	36 38	Undergraduate Graduate	Psychology Psychology
Rhoads and Hubele 2000	1	2	63 61	Undergraduate	Engineering	Used to measure change in attitudes before and after a computer-integrated statistics course.
D'Andrea and Waters 2002	1	2	32 17	Graduate	Education	Used to measure change in attitudes before and after a statistics course using “short stories”.
Aldogan and Aseeri 2003	1	1	178	Graduate	Variety of majors	Arabic version.
Mvududu 2003	1 2	1 1	95 120	Undergraduate Undergraduate	Variety of majors (USA) Business, Accounting and Economics (Zimbabwe)	Cross-cultural study (USA and Zimbabwe). Used to measure the relationship between attitudes toward statistics and the use of constructivist strategies.

Note 1: As can be seen from the table (column Sample), some authors use two different samples.

Note 2: # Adm. stands for the number of administrations for a particular sample.

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