Statistics anxiety in university students in assessment situations

Abstract

Many students have feelings of state anxiety when taking exams, and these feelings probably affect their performance. Statistics courses have been identified as producing the most anxiety. The purpose of our study is to measure statistics anxiety throughout an academic course (pre-test and three assessments) in order to observe its change and analyze the relationship between statistics anxiety and academic achievement. The sample is composed of 30 Psychology students taking a course in research designs and statistics (26.7% men and 73.3% women) with a mean age of 20.31 years (SD = 3.76). The results show that the students begin with a high level of statistics anxiety that gradually declines as the course progresses and they study the course materials. Moreover, the final achievement in the subject maintains an inverse relationship with the level of statistics anxiety. The recommendation is to present the detailed contents of the teaching guide on the first day of the course in order to reduce students’ anxiety and uncertainty when beginning a statistics course. Financial support: Project UV-INV-AE17-698616. University of Valencia. Spain.