A Psychological Model Explaining Why We Love or Hate Statistics

Abstract

Students of social sciences often hate statistics and therefore cannot utilize statistics optimally. As only a few studies are available on the antecedents of the attitude towards statistics, the authors investigated five possible antecedents in a hypothetical model. The sample for this study was 255 psychology students across Greater Jakarta, Indonesia (52 males, 203 females; M_age = 20.309 years old, SD_age = 1.182 years). Using path analysis, it was found that mathematics self-efficacy and appreciation towards history of mathematics can predict statistics appropriation, while ambiguity tolerance can predict previous bad mathematics experience. Finally, both statistics appropriation and previous bad mathematics experience can predict attitude towards statistics, thus confirming the hypothesized model. The overall psychological model had a good fit (χ² (7, N = 255) = 7.72, p > .05).

Keywords: Attitude, History of Mathematics, Mathematics Efficacy, Mathematics Experience, Statistics Appropriation