“Constantly Working on My Attitude Towards Statistics!” Education Doctoral Students’ Experiences with and Motivations for Learning Statistics

Doctoral students in education-related fields are required to take graduate level statistics courses and often face anxiety and negative attitudes about taking these courses. Using a mixed methods survey research design (N = 95), this study explored students’ experiences with statistics anxiety and how course instructors can support them to mitigate statistics anxiety and improve attitudes. Analyses of quantitative survey data found that students who had never taken a statistics course before beginning their doctoral program, and students that had completed less doctoral coursework had higher negative attitudes towards learning statistics; and older students had higher statistics anxiety. Plans to use research in the future predicted more positive attitudes and lower statistics anxiety. Analysis of qualitative survey data found that students: (1) expressed that their attitude towards learning statistics was very important and played a big role in how they approached their coursework; (2) considered their plans to use research skills in the future as motivation to learn statistics; and (3) believed that their instructors’ attitudes and instructional practices supported learning and decreased statistics anxiety. This study has implications for how statistics and research methods courses are taught in higher education, and how the experiences of graduate students in education may have lasting implications for research use in Prek-12 education settings.