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Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)

BACKGROUND: Medical statistics has become important and relevant for future doctors, enabling them to practice evidence based medicine. Recent studies report that students’ attitudes towards statistics play an important role in their statistics achievements. The aim of the study was to test the psyc...

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Autores principales: Stanisavljevic, Dejana, Trajkovic, Goran, Marinkovic, Jelena, Bukumiric, Zoran, Cirkovic, Andja, Milic, Natasa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4236124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25405489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112567
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author Stanisavljevic, Dejana
Trajkovic, Goran
Marinkovic, Jelena
Bukumiric, Zoran
Cirkovic, Andja
Milic, Natasa
author_facet Stanisavljevic, Dejana
Trajkovic, Goran
Marinkovic, Jelena
Bukumiric, Zoran
Cirkovic, Andja
Milic, Natasa
author_sort Stanisavljevic, Dejana
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Medical statistics has become important and relevant for future doctors, enabling them to practice evidence based medicine. Recent studies report that students’ attitudes towards statistics play an important role in their statistics achievements. The aim of the study was to test the psychometric properties of the Serbian version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS) in order to acquire a valid instrument to measure attitudes inside the Serbian educational context. METHODS: The validation study was performed on a cohort of 417 medical students who were enrolled in an obligatory introductory statistics course. The SATS adaptation was based on an internationally accepted methodology for translation and cultural adaptation. Psychometric properties of the Serbian version of the SATS were analyzed through the examination of factorial structure and internal consistency. RESULTS: Most medical students held positive attitudes towards statistics. The average total SATS score was above neutral (4.3±0.8), and varied from 1.9 to 6.2. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the six-factor structure of the questionnaire (Affect, Cognitive Competence, Value, Difficulty, Interest and Effort). Values for fit indices TLI (0.940) and CFI (0.961) were above the cut-off of ≥0.90. The RMSEA value of 0.064 (0.051–0.078) was below the suggested value of ≤0.08. Cronbach’s alpha of the entire scale was 0.90, indicating scale reliability. In a multivariate regression model, self-rating of ability in mathematics and current grade point average were significantly associated with the total SATS score after adjusting for age and gender. CONCLUSION: Present study provided the evidence for the appropriate metric properties of the Serbian version of SATS. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the six-factor structure of the scale. The SATS might be reliable and a valid instrument for identifying medical students’ attitudes towards statistics in the Serbian educational context.
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spelling pubmed-42361242014-11-21 Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS) Stanisavljevic, Dejana Trajkovic, Goran Marinkovic, Jelena Bukumiric, Zoran Cirkovic, Andja Milic, Natasa PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Medical statistics has become important and relevant for future doctors, enabling them to practice evidence based medicine. Recent studies report that students’ attitudes towards statistics play an important role in their statistics achievements. The aim of the study was to test the psychometric properties of the Serbian version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS) in order to acquire a valid instrument to measure attitudes inside the Serbian educational context. METHODS: The validation study was performed on a cohort of 417 medical students who were enrolled in an obligatory introductory statistics course. The SATS adaptation was based on an internationally accepted methodology for translation and cultural adaptation. Psychometric properties of the Serbian version of the SATS were analyzed through the examination of factorial structure and internal consistency. RESULTS: Most medical students held positive attitudes towards statistics. The average total SATS score was above neutral (4.3±0.8), and varied from 1.9 to 6.2. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the six-factor structure of the questionnaire (Affect, Cognitive Competence, Value, Difficulty, Interest and Effort). Values for fit indices TLI (0.940) and CFI (0.961) were above the cut-off of ≥0.90. The RMSEA value of 0.064 (0.051–0.078) was below the suggested value of ≤0.08. Cronbach’s alpha of the entire scale was 0.90, indicating scale reliability. In a multivariate regression model, self-rating of ability in mathematics and current grade point average were significantly associated with the total SATS score after adjusting for age and gender. CONCLUSION: Present study provided the evidence for the appropriate metric properties of the Serbian version of SATS. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the six-factor structure of the scale. The SATS might be reliable and a valid instrument for identifying medical students’ attitudes towards statistics in the Serbian educational context. Public Library of Science 2014-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4236124/ /pubmed/25405489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112567 Text en © 2014 Stanisavljevic et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stanisavljevic, Dejana
Trajkovic, Goran
Marinkovic, Jelena
Bukumiric, Zoran
Cirkovic, Andja
Milic, Natasa
Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)
title Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)
title_full Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)
title_fullStr Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)
title_full_unstemmed Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)
title_short Assessing Attitudes towards Statistics among Medical Students: Psychometric Properties of the Serbian Version of the Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS)
title_sort assessing attitudes towards statistics among medical students: psychometric properties of the serbian version of the survey of attitudes towards statistics (sats)
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4236124/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25405489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112567
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