Abstract
The measurement of the attitude towards statistics and the relationship between the attitude towards statistics and several socio-demographic and educational factors was investigated in a survey on over 600 students of the Ludgwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU). The attitude towards statistics was measured by means of the Affect and Cognitive Competence scales of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS, Schau et al. 1995), that proved to be well suited for identifying students with high levels of negative attitude against statistics, even though potential effects of the translation into German were noticeable for the positively worded items. Predictors found relevant for a negative attitude towards statistics were gender, mathematics taken as an intensive course in high school, prior (perceived) mathematics achievement, prior mathematics experience as well as two of the newly included items on students’ strategy applied in mathematics courses in high school: Students who named practicing as their strategy were less likely, while students who namedmemorizing as their strategy were more likely to show a negative attitude towards statistics.
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Acknowledgments
Christian Dittrich, Christian Seiler and Sandra Hackensperger were students at the LMU Department of Statistics and analyzed the data of this study during their course “Statistisches Praktikum”. They have attended several lectures given by Ludwig Fahrmeir and – as for so many of us – their attitude towards statistics has highly profited from his teachings.
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Strobl, C., Leisch, F., Dittrich, C., Seiler, C., Hackensperger, S. (2010). Measurement and Predictors of a Negative Attitude towards Statistics among LMU Students. In: Kneib, T., Tutz, G. (eds) Statistical Modelling and Regression Structures. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2413-1_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2413-1_12
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