extended · article · 2018

Measuring statistical anxiety and attitudes toward statistics: The development of a comprehensive Danish instrument (HFS-R)

Tine Nielsen; Svend Kreiner

Motivated by experience with students’ psychological barriers to learning statistics, we modified and extended the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) to develop a contemporary and valid (face, content, criterion and construct) Danish measure of attitudes and relationship towards statistics for use with higher education students taking statistics within another discipline. Two subscales were excluded because of lack of conceptual unidimensionality or derogatory content, and single items were modified for face and content validity enhancement in the remaining subscales. Following a pilot study and main study, the resulting 26-item Danish instrument (HFS-R for “holdninger og forhold til statistik - Revideret”, in English “Attitudes and Relationship to Statistics - Revised”) consists of four subscales: Test and Class Anxiety (TCA), Interpretation Anxiety (IA), Fear of Asking for Help (...