Reliability and validity of the Statistical Anxiety Scale among students in Singapore and Australia

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Chew, Peter K.H.;Dillon, Denise B.
Abstract

Given the negative relationships between statistics anxiety and statistics achievement, it is important for researchers and instructors to have a reliable and valid measure to identify students with statistics anxiety. The purpose of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties of Vigil-Colet, Lorenzo-Seva, and Condon's (2008) Statistical Anxiety Scale (SAS) among students in in Singapore and Australia. Unlike the commonly used Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale, the SAS provides a specific measure of statistics anxiety. Participants were 197 undergraduates (79.2% female) in the James Cook University Psychology programs at the Singaporean (70.1%) and Australian (29.9 %) campuses. Acceptable internal consistency reliabilities, ranging from .88 to .95 for the three factors of the SAS, were found in the current study. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that a modified three-factor model best describe the data. Scores on the SAS shared positive correlations with another measure of statistics anxiety, and negative correlations with a measure of attitudes toward statistics. The results provided support for the use of the SAS among Singaporean and Australian psychology undergraduates.

Journal

Journal of Tropical Psychology

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4

ISBN/ISSN

1838-9902

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Pages Count

7

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Publisher

Cambridge University Press

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EISSN

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DOI

10.1017/jtp.2014.7