Statistics Anxiety: A Barrier for Education in Research Methodology for Medical Students?

Research methodology forms an important part of the required training of medical doctors. Unfortunately, medical students tend to show low appreciation for education on this topic. In this study, we investigated one of the possible barriers for the education of research methodology to medical students, i.e. statistics anxiety, using the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS). The scores on the STARS questionnaire for first and second year medical students (n = 520) were analyzed for both the six subscales and overall STARS score, and the relation between statistics anxiety and student characteristics like gender, age, previous mathematics experience and current course performance were examined. The mean score on the STARS questionnaire was 2.27 ± 0.51 (scale 1–5), suggesting only moderate statistics anxiety. Women reported significantly higher anxiety than men, whereas no effect was found for age. Statistics anxiety was negatively correlated with mathematics performance in high school. No effect was found for previous statistics education. The effect of statistics anxiety on course performance was small and limited to questions on statistics and epidemiology. © 2013, Springer International Publishing.