Reducing the influence of perfectionism and statistics anxiety on college student performance in statistics courses

The influence of perfectionism and statistics anxiety on academic performance (AP) in statistics courses was investigated using a multidimensional perfectionism scale and a statistics anxiety rating scale. For perfectionism, the factor of personal standards (PS) had a significant direct positive effect on AP, while the factor of parental expectations (PE) was significantly negatively correlated with AP. Other factors (concern over mistakes, organization, and doubts about actions) did not significantly influence AP. For statistics anxiety, the two factors (test and class anxiety and computation self-concept) significantly impaired AP. These results indicated a need for innovation in classroom instruction and the reform of statistics course content and presentation to reduce statistics anxiety and improve PS. There is also a need to ensure that students better internalize PE and to revise instructional design techniques to enhance students’ independent learning ability.