Influence of self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics on undergraduates’ statistics engagement in a Malaysian public university

Abstract

Undergraduate students’ statistics engagement plays a vital role in their performance in introductory statistics courses. Self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics were claimed to influence students’ engagement. Accordingly, this study investigated the influence of self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics on undergraduate students’ statistics engagement in a Malaysian public university. This study was conducted on first year students from various fields of study enrolled in an introductory statistics course. A random sample of 293 students were selected to participate in the survey. Descriptive analysis revealed that both students’ statistics engagement and self-efficacy were moderate, while their attitudes towards statistics were positive. Correlation analysis indicated that statistics engagement was significantly related to self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics. Furthermore, multiple linear regression analysis showed that self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics are significant predictors of statistics engagement and explained half of its’ variation. Attitudes towards statistics had a greater influence on statistics engagement than self-efficacy for these students. These findings affirmed that self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics influenced students’ statistics engagement. In essence, having high self-efficacy and positive attitudes towards statistics will help stduents to be highly engaged in their learning to perform better in statistics course.