The Development and Validation of the Survey of Antitudes toward Statistics

Abstract

The Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS) was designed for use in both research and instruction. A panel of instructors and introductory statistics students identified by consensus four facets of attitudes toward statistics: (a) Affect-positive and negative feelings concerning statistics; (b) Cognitive Competence-attitudes about intellectual knowledge and skills when applied to statistics; (c) Value-attitudes about the usefulness, relevance, and worth of statistics; and (d) Difficulty-attitudes about the difficulty of statistics as a subject. This structure was validated for a sample of undergraduate students using confirmatory factor analysis. Additional validity evidence was obtained through the correlation of the SATS with Wise's Attitudes Toward Statistics scale, which showed significant, positive relationships between the two instruments.