Literature Index

Displaying 2291 - 2300 of 3326
  • Author(s):
    Benson, Jeri
    Year:
    1989
    Abstract:
    The purpose of this study was to explore the basis of test anxiety expressed when taking a statistics course using a structural modeling approach. The study involved 219 university students. The data indicated that statistical test anxiety was different from general test anxiety. The females expressed more general and statistical test anxiety than males, and students who had taken more prior math courses had higher math self-concept scores. Math self-concept and achievement in statistics were negatively related to statistical test anxiety, and the students who reported high levels of general anxiety also reported high levels of statistical anxiety. The structural model revealed variables not studied previously to be important in understanding statistical test anxiety.
  • Author(s):
    Wisenbaker, J., Scott, J. & Nasser, F.
    Editors:
    Starkings, S.
    Year:
    2000
    Abstract:
    The difficulties that many students, particularly those in the social and behavioral sciences, encounter while taking an introductory statistics course have been widely reported in many parts of the world. Factors that have been purported as relating to performance in introductory statistics include a variety of cognitive and affective variables (Feinberg &amp; Halperin, 1978). Cognitive factors, such as mathematics ability and background, certainly play a major role in performance in an introductory statistics course; however, affective variables are also important. Gal and Ginsburg (1994) reported that "The body of research on students' attitudes, beliefs, and affect related directly to statistics education is very small and problematic." They further state that concerns for studying non-cognitive aspects of statistics education should not only be motivated by outcome (performance) but also by process considerations.<br><br>A major issue concerns the influence of attitudes on achievement. McLeod (1992) suggested that neither attitude nor achievement is dependent on the other, but they "interact with each other in complex and unpredictable ways. (p. 582)" The prospect of the reciprocal relationship of attitude and achievement has been proposed by others (Kulm, 1980) and negates the possibility of isolating the cognitive and affective domains. A number of studies have investigated the relationship between attitudes toward statistics and performance in an introductory course using a variety of correlational and regression techniques. Results generally indicate a small to moderate positive relationship. This relationship appears to be fairly consistent regardless of the instrument used, the time of administration of either the attitude or performance measure, or the level of the student.<br><br>Longitudinal studies of math attitudes and performance (Pajares &amp; Miller, 1994; Meece, Wigfield, &amp; Eccles, 1990; Eccles &amp; Jacobs, 1986) have provided path analyses of the relationship of these variables. In a study of undergraduates, Pajares and Miller (1994) determined that mathematics self-efficacy was highly related to mathematics performance with mathematics self-concept and high school mathematics experience making a small, but significant contribution. Perceived usefulness was not a contributor to mathematics performance. Eccles and Jacobs' (1986) path analysis indicated that mathematics grades were influenced by the students' self-concept of math ability and math anxiety, but were not influenced by the student's perception of the task difficulty or the perceived value of mathematics. Meece, Wigfield, and Eccles' (1990) path analysis found that students' prior grades and expectancies were predictors of grades, while importance and anxiety were not. In several other papers, the first two of the current authors have developed a model suggesting that some aspects of statistics attitude at the beginning of a course affect test performance during the course and that end of course attitudes were both directly and indirectly influenced by performance during the course. The research reported here extends that line of inquiry looking at data from English and Arabic speaking samples available in the U.S. and Israel.
  • Author(s):
    Nasser, F. M.
    Year:
    2004
    Abstract:
    This study examined the extent to which statistics and mathematics anxiety, attitudes toward mathematics and statistics, motivation and mathematical aptitude can explain the achievement of Arabic speaking pre-service teachers in introductory statistics. Complete data were collected from 162 pre-service teachers enrolled in an academic teacher-training program for elementary and middle schools in Israel. The data, except for the two achievement tests, were collected during statistics classes prior to the midterm examination. The majority (96%) of participants were female students with a mean age of 21. As regards variables examined in this study, only the hypothesized effect of mathematical aptitude on achievement in statistics was relatively large. The results also indicated that mathematical aptitude, mathematics anxiety, attitudes toward mathematics and statistics, and motivation, together accounted for 36% of the variance in achievement in introductory statistics for the current sample.
  • Author(s):
    Green, M. G., &amp; Ross, B. M.
    Year:
    1978
    Abstract:
    Previous replication studies have met with discrepant results in their attempts to evaluate Piaget and Inhelder's study of chance and probability concepts in children. Consequently, 56 subjects (aged 5-4 to 17-11) were tested on 2 cognitive tasks taken from the authors' original work. Specific objections to Piaget and Inhelder's experimental and analytic procedures are overcome here by utilizing a scoring procedure which elicits item-type data from relatively standardized interviews. The results of this replication study indicate considerable agreement with Piaget and Inhelder's description of stage-related verbal features while failing to confirm their description of stage-related nonverbal features. Evidence from this study is related to the concept of "stage" in cognitive-developmental theory, and the procedures used here are evaluated vis-`a-vis developmental issues.
  • Author(s):
    Harbourt, A. M., Knecht, L. S., Humphreys, B. L.
    Year:
    1995
    Abstract:
    OBJECTIVE: To characterize the structured abstracts in biomedical journals indexed in MEDLINE over a three-year period as an initial step in exploring their utility in enhancing bibliographic retrieval. DESIGN: The study examined the occurrence of structured abstracts in MEDLINE from March 1989 to December 1991, characteristics of MEDLINE records for articles with structured abstracts, editorial policies of six selected MEDLINE journals on structured abstracts, and a sample of twenty-five structured abstracts from the six journals. RESULTS: The study revealed that the number of structured abstracts in MEDLINE and the number of MEDLINE journals publishing structured abstracts increased substantially between 1989 and 1991. On average, articles with structured abstracts had more access points (Medical Subject Heading [MeSH] terms and text words) than MEDLINE articles as a whole. The average length of the structured abstract was greater than the average length of all abstracts in MEDLINE. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of structured abstracts may be associated with other article characteristics that lead to the assignment of a higher average number of MeSH headings or may itself contribute to the assignment of more headings. The variations in the structured-abstract formats prescribed by different journals may complicate the exploitation of these abstracts in bibliographic retrieval systems. More research is needed on a number of questions related to the quality and utility of structured abstracts.
  • Author(s):
    Petrosino, A. J., Lehrer, R., &amp; Schauble, L.
    Year:
    2003
    Abstract:
    Focuses on ability of students of fourth grade in structuring error and experimental variation as distribution. Interpretation of centers of distribution by students; Performance of students in various reasoning assignments.
  • Author(s):
    Richard Lehrer &amp; Min-Joung Kim
    Year:
    2009
    Abstract:
    Although variability and structure are often considered as antonyms in many<br>everyday settings, a mathematically disciplined view contradicts this<br>opposition. To initiate fifth- (10 years old) and sixth-grade (11 years old)<br>students in this disciplinary view, we engaged students in practices of<br>modeling data. These practices included inventing and revising data displays,<br>inventing and revising measures of centre and variability, and inventing and<br>revising models of chance to account for variability. Here we focus on<br>prospective correspondences between students' invented measures (statistics)<br>of variability and those favoured by the discipline. We suggest that inventing<br>measures positions students to transform their vision of variability from mere<br>difference to more structured forms, some of which coordinate centre and<br>spread. By tracing interactions among an inventor, her classmates, and the<br>teacher, we trace how structuring variability and constituting its measure co-<br>originated during the course of negotiations about the meaning of the measure.<br>Consideration of the coherency, transparency and generalisability of a statistic,<br>all of which are valued by the discipline of statistics, emerged during the course<br>of invention.
  • Author(s):
    M. Ryan Haley, Marianne F. Johnson, and Eric W. Kuennen
    Year:
    2007
    Abstract:
    Studies have yielded highly mixed results as to differences in male and female student performance in statistics courses; the role that professors play in these differences is even less clear. In this paper, we consider the impact of professor and student gender on student performance in an introductory business statistics course taught by economics faculty. Using a sample of 535 students, we find, after controlling for academic and mathematical background, that students taught by a professor of the opposite gender fare significantly worse than students taught by a professor of the same gender. The presence of this gender effect highlights the importance of pursuing sound, gender-neutral pedagogical practices in introductory statistics education.
  • Author(s):
    Noll, Jennifer; Kirin, Dana
    Year:
    2016
    Abstract:
    Statistical literacy skills and technological literacy skills are becoming increasingly entwined as the practice of statistics shifts toward more reliance on the power of technology. More and more, statistics educators suggest reforming introductory college statistics courses to include more emphasis on technology and modeling. But what is the impact of such a focus on student learning? This research examines a small sample of students. The students received a reform-oriented curriculum focused on modeling and simulation using TinkerPlotsTM technology. The data reported here is from students written work at the end of the term on their final assessment. They had access to TinkerPlotsTM for the assessment and we share the ways they used the technology to create statistical models. This work provides insights into the ways students’ construct models and how they interpret the models they construct within the context of the original statistical problem they were given. We describe how the technology used in this reform class appeared to frame students’ ways of constructing a statistical model. We also discuss challenges of this approach for student thinking and share implications for teaching and future research.
  • Author(s):
    Gunnarsson, C. L.
    Editors:
    Soled, S. W.
    Year:
    2001
    Abstract:
    The purpose of this study was twofold. First, the purpose was to design a web based graduate level statistics course for MBA students and to analyze the attitudes of the online students toward the course. The second purpose was to compare the students taking the course online versus the students taking the course in a traditional classroom setting. Achievement along with three mediating variables was investigated. The three mediating variables included: prior computer experience, prior math knowledge and experience and attitude toward the subject of statistics. The participants were forty-two graduate students in their first year of the MBA program, thirteen students took the class online, twenty-nine attended a traditional class. Students' attitudes toward learning in an online environment overall were favorable. Differences were found in the attitude toward the subject of statistics and prior computer experience; however, no casual relationship between class and achievement was detected. Students who learned in an online environment achieved comparably to students learning in a traditional classroom. The online course developed for this research can be used as an educationally equivalent managerial statistics course taught in a traditional classroom setting.

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The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education