Students’ Achievements in a
statistics
course in relation to
motivational
aspects and study behaviour
LUC BUDÉ
Luc.Bude@stat.unimaas.nl
MARGARETHA
W. J. VAN DE WIEL
M.vandeWiel@psychology.unimaas.nl
TJAART
IMBOS
Tjaart.Imbos@stat.unimaas.nl
MATH J. J.
M. CANDEL
Math.Candel@stat.unimaas.nl
NICK J.
BROERS
Nick.Broers@stat.unimaas.nl
MARTIJN P.
F. BERGER
Martijn.Berger@stat.unimaas.nl
ABSTRACT
The present study focuses on motivational constructs and their effect on students’ academic achievement within an existing statistics course. First-year Health Sciences students completed a questionnaire that measures several motivational constructs: dimensions of causal attributions, outcome expectancy, affect, and study behaviour, all with respect to statistics. The results showed that when the cause of negative events was perceived as uncontrollable, outcome expectancy was negative. When the cause of negative events was perceived as stable, affect toward statistics was negative. Furthermore, negative affect toward statistics and limited study behaviour led to unsatisfactory achievements. Path analysis (Lisrel) largely confirmed the causal relations in a model that was based on attributional and learned helplessness theories. The consequences of these findings for statistics education are discussed.
Keywords: Statistics
education research; Motivation; Conceptual understanding; Study behaviour
__________________________
Statistics Education Research
Journal, 6(1), 5-21, http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/serj
Ó International Association for Statistical Education
(IASE/ISI), May, 2007
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Luc Budé
Department of Methodology and Statistics
6200 MD