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Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) Use in Psychology Students: a Review and Analysis with an Undergraduate Sample Rachel J

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Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) Use in Psychology Students: a Review and Analysis with an Undergraduate Sample Rachel J DARTP bursary winners Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) use in Psychology students: A review and analysis with an undergraduate sample Rachel J. Nesbit & Victoria J. Bourne Statistics anxiety is extremely common in undergraduate psychology students. The Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) is at present the most widely used measure to assess statistics anxiety, measuring six distinct scales: test and class anxiety, interpretation anxiety, fear of asking for help, worth of statistics, fear of statistics teachers and computational self-concept. In this paper we first review the existing research that uses the STARS with psychology undergraduates. We then provide an analysis of the factor and reliability analysis of the STARS measure using a sample of undergraduate psychology students (N=315). Factor analysis of the STARS yielded nine factors, rather than the six it is intended to measure, with some items indicating low reliability, as demonstrated by low factor loadings. On the basis of these data, we consider the further development and refinement of measures of statistics anxiety in psychology students. Keywords: STARS, psychology, statistics anxiety. Introduction asking for help. The second section of the N THE UK, psychology is an increas- STARS measures attitudes towards statis- ingly popular subject for undergrad- tics and consists of three scales (28 items): Iuate students, with more than 80,000 worth of statistics, fear of statistics tutors and undergraduate students across the UK in computational self-concept. 2016–2017 (HESA). Despite the popularity The initial factor structure of the STARS of psychology in higher education many identified six distinct factors (Cruise et new entrants are unaware of the statistical al., 1985), as did the UK adaption (Hanna components of their course (Ruggeri et al., et al., 2008), validating the six scales 2008). Indeed, it has been reported that that were initially devised. Additionally, up to 80 per cent of psychology undergrad- some researchers have found evidence of uate students report experiencing statistics two second order superordinate factors anxiety (Onwuegbuzie & Wilson, 2003), and (Papousek et al., 2010): statistics anxiety (test rate statistics as the most challenging part of and class anxiety, interpretation anxiety and their psychology degree (Barry, 2012). fear of asking for help) and attitudes towards The Statistics Anxiety Rating scale statistics (worth of statistics, fear of statis- (STARS; Cruise, Cash & Bolton, 1985) is tics tutors and computational self-concept). currently the most widely used measure to This has led some researchers to select out assess statistics anxiety and has been revised only specific scales from the STARS to use for UK students (Hanna et al., 2008). The in research. For example, some have used STARS contains 51-items split across six only the three scales relating to anxiety (e.g. scales, arranged in two sections. The first Chew & Dillon, 2014; Macher et al., 2012), section assesses statistics anxiety and consists whilst other studies have used a composite of three scales (23 items): test and class score across the six scales (e.g. Chiou et al., anxiety, interpretation anxiety and fear of 2014) or all six components of the STARS Psychology Teaching Review Vol. 24 No. 2, 2018 101 Rachel J. Nesbit & Victoria J. Bourne (e.g. Chew & Dillon, 2014; Hanna & Demp- published empirical research papers, using ster, 2009). solely undergraduate psychology students, The use of the separate scales has been with data collected through the use of the particularly useful when looking at indi- STARS measure, and where descriptive statis- vidual differences in academic performance, tics were provided for at least some of the attitudes and personality. For example, STARS scales (not solely composite scores). Hanna and Dempster (2009) found that only two of the STARS scales, computational Summary self-concept and fear of asking for help, were Eleven articles were identified that matched associated with a student’s own prediction of our criteria. The descriptive statistics and their performance in a statistics assessment, reliability analysis can be found in Table 1, whereas the worth of statistics and inter- where reported. It is evident from the table pretation anxiety scales of the STARS were that scale scores differed across samples, with significant predictors of student’s actual some samples demonstrating higher levels of performance. Further to this, group work- statistics anxiety and more negative attitudes shops to improve statistics anxiety and atti- towards statistics than others. Whilst in the tudes found improvements in the attitudes majority of studies using the STARS scale scales, but not in the anxiety scales (Hood scores are computed as the mean of the total & Neumann, 2013). Different scales of the for that scale, in some instances researchers STARS measure have also been differentially have calculated a mean score as participant’s associated with personality. For example, average score on that specific scale (Hood & agreeableness was found to be negatively Neumann; Paechter et al., 2017). correlated with worth of statistics, fear of Looking at the descriptive statistics, there asking for help and fear of statistics teachers, is some variability in the scales across studies. whereas extraversion was found to be posi- However, due to the varying number of items tively related to interpretation anxiety, test per scale, it is difficult to compare scores and class anxiety and fear of asking for help across scales within studies. Considering (Chew & Dillon, 2014). scores within scales and across studies, some It is clear that the STARS is a useful scales appear to have similar mean scores research tool, both as an overall measure across the studies (e.g. test and class anxiety and divided into individual scales, and in this having scores from 26.53–30.01), whereas paper we aim to further explore the psycho- other have more variable scores (e.g. worth metric characteristics of STARS. First, this is of statistics having scores from 34.89–57.12). achieved by reviewing the STARS scale scores Importantly, some of the scale reliabili- and reliability in research that has used ties are quite variable. Across all studies, the undergraduate psychology students. Second, test and class anxiety scale consistently has we analyse a large dataset collected through alphas that indicate a good level of internal the STARS measure, on an undergraduate consistency and the worth of statistics scale psychology sample, where we consider both was found to have excellent levels of internal the factor structure and reliability of the consistency. However, other scales varied STARS. more in their consistency. For example, the interpretation anxiety scale had alpha levels Review of published research indicating levels of internal consistency Selection criteria ranging from acceptable to excellent. A Google scholar search was carried out using the phrase ‘Statistics anxiety rating scale’, which produced 220 hits. These were then reduced in number by applying the selection criteria that papers should be 102 Psychology Teaching Review Vol. 24 No. 2, 2018 Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations and reliability statistics for STARS scales for all available published research papers using psychology undergraduate students Psychology TeachingReview Vol.24No. 2,2018 Test and Interpretation Fear of asking Worth of Fear of statistics Computational class anxiety anxiety for help statistics teachers self-concept Number of items: 8 11 4 16 5 7 Scale scores: 8–40 11–55 4–20 16–80 5–25 7–35 N M α M α M α M α M α M α (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) 1. Hanna, Shevlin & Dempster (2008) 650 27.07 .87 30.26 .87 10.39 .83 56.98 .94 18.20 .83 23.91 .87 (6.69) (8.42) (3.87) (14.13) (4.72) (6.60) 2. Hanna & Dempster (2009) 52 26.53 – 31.50 – 11.27 – 57.12 – 19.43 – 22.87 – (6.31) (11.26) (4.10) (10.05) (3.55) (6.17) Statistics AnxietyRatingScale(STARS)useinPsychologystudents 3. Hamid & Sulaiman (2014) 139 30.01 .81 35.96 .75 13.32 .84 34.89 .91 20.48 .73 21.85 .82 (5.39) (5.57) (3.94) (11.29) (3.36) (5.97) 4. Chew & Dillon (2014) 83 27.02 .88 29.82 .90 9.53 .83 39.39 .94 11.24 .86 18.05 .88 (6.34) (8.12) (3.32) (12.50) (4.45) (6.26) 5. Ruggeri, Dempster, Hanna & Cleary (2008)+ 158 27.08 – 31.48 – 8.80 – 41.76 – 11.48 – 20.75 – (6.10) (7.63) (3.75) (10.95) (3.52) (6.05) 6. Lester (2016) 93 28.40 .87 31.60 .91 10.10 .84 54.40 .94 19.70 .74 22.40 .88 (6.80) (9.10) (4.00) (13.50) (3.50) (7.00) 7. Hood & Neumann (2013)** 113 2.93 .86 2.40 .88 2.33 .91 2.08 .94 1.81 .76 2.07 .88 8. Chew, Swinbourne & Dillon (2014) 76 28.12 .88 30.17 .90 9.93 .88 – – – – – – (6.35) (8.49) (3.93) 9. Chew, Dillon & Swinbourne (2018) 202 28.71 .89 31.08 .91 9.93 .88 39.09 .94 11.41 .81 18.77 .90 (6.51) (8.94) (4.07) (13.49) (4.20) (7.06) 10. Paechter, Macher, Martskvishvilli, Wimmer 224 2.57 – 1.72 – 2.10 – – – – – – – & Papousek (2017) ** (0.76 (0.54) (0.82) 11. Macher, Paechter, Papousek & Ruggeri (2012) 147 – .85 – .90 – .85 – – – – – – Mean scores 27.86 31.48 10.41 46.23 15.99 21.23 103 Note: + Statistics were reported separately for Year 1 (N = 158) and Year 2 (N = 38) students, Year 1 statistics reported but no significant differences reported p>.50. ** Scores calculated as the average of all items in this scale, instead of mean of scale total. Mean scale scores calculated for all papers using total scores only. Rachel J. Nesbit & Victoria J.
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