THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDES IN STATISTICS EDUCATION

CAROLINE RAMIREZ

University of the Pacific

caaramirez@aol.com

Candace Schau

CS Consultants, LLC

Professor Emerita, University of New Mexico

cschau@comcast.net

Esma EMMIOGLU

Gaziosmanpasa University

esma.Emmioglu@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

People forget what they do not use. But attitudes “stick.” Our article emphasizes the importance of students' attitudes toward statistics. We examine 15 surveys that purport to assess these attitudes and then describe the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics, a commonly used attitude survey. We present our conceptual model of Students' Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS-M), which is congruent with Eccles and colleagues' Expectancy-Value Theory (Eccles' EVT), as well as others. The SATS-M includes three broad constructs that impact Statistics Course Outcomes: Student Characteristics, Previous Achievement-Related Experiences, and Statistics Attitudes. We briefly describe Eccles' EVT and other theories that support our SATS-M. We relate findings from research using the SATS to our model and end with implications for statistics education.

Keywords: Statistics education research; Students' attitudes toward statistics; SATS-36; Expectancy-value theory

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Statistics Education Research Journal, 11(2), 57-71, http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/serj

(c) International Association for Statistical Education (IASE/ISI), November, 2012

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CAROLINE RAMIREZ

University of the Pacific

Department of Mathematics

3601 Pacific Ave.

Stockton, CA 95211