TPC-Journal-V1-Issue2

102 The Professional Counselor \ Volume 1, Issue 2 from 21 to 71 with 34.4 as the mean age. The cultural makeup of the sample consisted of 4 Native American (2.4%), 4 Asian/Pacific Islander (2.4%), 24 African American (14.5%), 124 Caucasian (74.7%), and 10 Latino participants (6%). The academic level of the participants was close to evenly split with 92 master’s students (55.4%) and 74 doctoral students (44.5%). The majority of the sample ( N = 144, 86.7%) were enrolled in counseling or related educational programs such as mental health counseling, school counseling, rehabilitation counseling, student affairs, and counselor education and supervision. Twenty-two (13.3%) participants were enrolled in education graduate programs such as educational leadership, curriculum and instruction, and educational technology. One hundred thirty-six participants (81.9%) were enrolled in programs that were accredited by at least one accreditation body appropriate to their program. Participants had different backgrounds in terms of taking statistics courses. The mean number of completed graduate statistics classes 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 having completed a single graduate level statistics course. Of the 121 who completed a statistics course previously, the mean final grade was 89.34% with the lowest grade earned reported as 70%. Instruments A demographic questionnaire was used to collect information related to participants’ personal characteristics as well as previous experiences with graduate statistics classes. The Self-Efficacy to Learn Statistics (SELS) scale was used to measure the dependent variable (Finney & Schraw, 2003). The SELS measures confidence in one’s ability to learn necessary statistics while in a statistics course in order to successfully complete 14 specific tasks using a 1 (no confidence at all) to a 6 (complete confidence) response scale. Only a total score is obtained from the instrument. Internal consistency reliability was reported as .975 Cronbach’s alpha. Validity evidence of SELS to other variables was reported. The SELS was positively correlated with the Math Self-Efficacy scale and negatively correlated to the general and statistics Test Anxiety Inventory subscale providing evidence of concurrent validity. The norm group for the instrument was a total of 154 college students enrolled in an introductory statistical methods course. The Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STAR) was used to measure the independent variable statistics anxiety (Baloglu, 2002; Cruise &Wilkins, 1980). The assessment is a 51-item Likert scale ranging from 1 (no anxiety) to 5 (very much anxiety) and measures anxiety in two parts. The first part includes 23 statements related to statistics anxiety and the second part has 28 items related to dealing with statistics. A total score as well as six subscores including the following are generated with this instrument: Worth of Statistics, Interpretation Anxiety, Test and Class Anxiety, Computation Self- Concept, Fear of Asking for Help, and Fear of Statistics Teacher. Reliability for each of the subscales ranged between .68 to .94 with a median of .88 (Worth of Statistics .94, Interpretation Anxiety .87, Test and Class Anxiety .69, Computational Self-Concept .88, Fear of Asking for Help .89, and Fear of Statistics Teachers .80). Validity evidence of STARS to other variables was reported. The STARS had a strong correlation (r = .76) to the Math Anxiety Scale (Roberts & Bilderback, 1980). The instrument was normed with 1,150 university students enrolled in statistics courses. The independent variable, attitude toward statistics, was measured by the Attitude Toward Statistics (ATS) scale (Schultz & Koshino, 1998). This is a 29 item, 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. A total score and two subscale scores, Attitudes Toward the Field and Attitudes Toward the Course, are obtained from the instrument. Both subscales were reported as reliable with Cronbach’s alpha at .92 for Attitudes Toward the Field and .91 for Attitudes Toward the Course (Wise, 1985). The ATS was reported to have strong concurrent validity with the Statistics Attitude Survey. The norm group consisted of 162 university students enrolled in an introductory educational statistics course. The third independent variable, social support, was measured by the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) (Zimet, Powell, Farley, Werkman, & Berkoff, 1990). The instrument has 12 items and utilized a 7-point Likert scale ranging from very strongly disagree to very strongly agree. A total score and three subscale scores (support from significant others, support from family, and support from friends) were obtained. The instrument was reported as reliable with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients reported as .85 to .91 for the three subscales. Test-retest values ranges from .72 to .85. Zimet et al. reported significant correlations between the MSPSS subscales and the Depression and Anxiety subscales of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist as evidence of construct validity for their instrument. The norm group consisted for 275 university students at Duke University.