A Study on Model Formation to Measure the Attitude of College Students Towards Statistics

Abstract

viii newlineABSTRACT newlineA Study on model formation to measure the attitude of college students toward Statistics newlineNandita Phukan newlineSupervisor :Dr. Manash Pratim Kashyap newlineAssistant Professor, Assam newlineDown Town University newlineCo-supervisor : Dr. Manoj Kumar Bhowal newlineAssociate Professor, J.B College, Jorhat newlineThe aim of the study is to investigate the relationships among mathematics achievement (self-reported previous mathematics achievement) attitude toward statistics (affect, effort, value, cognitive-competence, difficulty, interest) and statistics outcome (total mark earned in statistics at the end of the semester, willingness to use statistics in future) of non-majoring statistics undergraduate students of Dibrugarh University, Assam. newlineOur study is carried on the under graduate students of Dibrugarh University. Data are collected from the sample of 345 students of Commerce, Education and Economics subject of 5 colleges under Dibrugarh University. The Survey of Attitudes toward Statistics (SATS-36) is used to collect data. The SATS-36 has pre and post versions to measure students attitude toward statistics at the beginning and at the end of a statistics course. The SATS-36 has 36 statements with a seven point response scale (1= fully reject, 4 = neither accept nor reject, 7 = fully accept). newlineFrom the above study, we find that overall attitude of students toward statistics is positive. At beginning of the semester all the students have neutral attitude toward students attitude toward statistics have positively changed. Also we find that the students of commerce and Economics have more positive attitude toward statistics in comparison to Education students. From the study it is found that mathematics achievement has no effect on statistics achievement. But mathematics skill has a direct effect on statistics achievement. We see that students academic performance depends on all the variables except difficulty that is students success in statistics subject is determined by the variables effort, affect, interest, statistics achievements, co