TPC-Digests-V1-Issues-123

A b s t r a c t The authors examined the extent of the relationship between self-efficacy to learn statistics and statistics anxiety, attitude towards statistics, and social support of graduate students enrolled in programs within colleges of education. Insight into how this population response to statistics courses and implications for educators as well as students are presented. R elationship B etween G raduate S tudents ’ S tatistics S elf -E fficacy , S tatistics A nxiety , A ttitude T oward S tatistics , and S ocial S upport The purpose of this study was to determine how graduate student self- efficacy to learn statistics is predicted by statistics anxiety, attitude toward statistics, and social support (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007). Self-efficacy to learn statistics is confidence in one’s ability to successfully learn statistical skills necessary in a statistics course (Finney & Schraw, 2003). The Self-Efficacy to Learn Statistics scale was used to measure the dependent variable (Finney & Schraw, 2003). The following scales were used to measure the independent variables: Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (Baloglu, 2002), Attitude Toward Statistics scale (Schultz & Koshino, 1998), and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Powell, Farley, Werkman, & Berkoff, 1990). One hundred sixty-six graduate students within colleges of education representing 27 states fully completed the online survey within the eight-week data collection timeframe. The mean number of completed graduate statistics class at the time of participating in the study was 1.63 classes for the sample. The range of courses was 0 to 6, and the mode was 0 classes with 45 participants (27.1%) not completed a single graduate level statistics course. A statistically significant relationship was found among self-efficacy and statistical anxiety, attitudes towards statistics and April 15th, 2011 Mishelle Perepiczka Nichelle Chandler Michael Becerra Link to Article TPC Digest