Prevalence and predictors of statistics anxiety among sociology and social work students: Prevalence and predictors of statistics anxiety among sociology and social work students

Abstract

Anxiety in the context of quantitative reasoning courses is a complex and highly prevalent problem, particularly among students majoring in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Gaining an accurate understanding of the anxiety levels experienced by students enrolling in statistics courses can be regarded as one of the most important factors affecting students’ learning and achievement in these courses. In the current study, the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale was applied to explore the prevalence and predictors of statistics anxiety among sociology and social work undergraduate students at Sultan Qaboos University (n=142). The results show that almost 71% of the examined students had experienced some aspects of statistics anxiety, with sociology students scoring noticeably higher than social work students. The leading predictors of higher statistics anxiety levels found in this study were as follows: test and class anxiety (80.2%) and interpretation anxiety (79.1%). Moreover, Welch’s test results show significant gender differences, with female students reporting higher levels of anxiety across all subscales than their male counterparts. Finally, some practical strategies of reducing statistics anxiety are discussed.

Keywords: Statistics anxiety, gender differences, sociology, social work, Oman