A mixed method investigation of social science graduate students’ statistics anxiety conditions before and after the introductory statistics course

Abstract

Research frequently uses the quantitative approach to explore undergraduate students’ anxiety regarding statistics. However, few studies of adults’ statistics anxiety use the qualitative method, or a sole focus on graduate students. Moreover, even fewer studies focus on a comparison of adults’ anxiety levels before and after an introductory statistics course. This line of study is important to pursue, since the introductory statistics course should play very important roles of both preparing students’ foundation knowledge and inspiring their interests for a higher-level course. In addition, graduate students tend to have different backgrounds, learning motivations, and learning habits, compared to their undergraduate counterparts. Overall, limited mixed research method is available on social sciences graduate students’ (1) statistics anxiety before and after the introductory statistics course, and (2) actions taken to decrease the anxiety. This study seeks to fill this gap by incorporating a mixed research method in order to explore social sciences graduate students’ statistics learning processes. Findings suggest that the social sciences graduate students’ anxiety levels tend to diminish after the introductory statistics course, even though these also experience severe statistics anxiety at the very beginning. These findings become essential for institutions, higher education instructors, and social sciences statistics learners to consider.