Attitudes Toward Statistics Among Swiss Psychology Students

Students' attitude toward statistics plays an important role in their statistics achievement. The present research tests the factorial structure and predictors as well as outcomes of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics in a sample of 346 Swiss psychology students. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the four-factor structure of the questionnaire (Affect, Cognitive Competence, Value, and Difficulty). Last math grade and sex were predictors of students' attitude toward statistics, which in turn explained 30% of the variance in statistics achievement. The results demonstrate the importance of students' feelings and opinions about statistics, over and above competence variables.