Attitudinal changes in face-to-face and online statistical reasoning learning environments

Abstract

Attitudes toward statistics play an important role in statistical understanding, postsecondary decisions, and a lifelong relationship with statistics. Unfortunately, the average undergraduate student tends to view statistics as less interesting and less valuable after completing an introductory statistics course. The product of several decades of statistics education reform, a statistical reasoning learning environment (SRLE) has shown some positive early results in cognitive domains and may impact attitudes as well. In this study, four classes of introductory undergraduate statistics (two fully online, two face-to-face) were designed as SRLEs. Students (n = 83) completed a pretest and posttest version of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics-36©. Both online and face-to-face sections showed average gains in Interest and Value that were higher than those reported in a large reference group, and these gains were practically significant.