LINKING INFORMATION PROCESSING STYLE PREFERENCE, STATISTICAL REASONING, AND STATISTICAL PERFORMANCE IN PSYCHOLOGY

Abstract

This study sought to examine the nature of the relationships between information processing style preference, statistical reasoning ability (statistical skills and misconceptions), and performance on a psychology-based statistics course (RDA IIA). A non-experimental, correlational research design was used. The sample consisted of 133 University of the Witwatersrand students who had completed the RDA IIA module. Participants completed a brief demographic questionnaire as well as the Rational-Experiential Inventory (Pacini & Epstein, 1999), assessing processing style preference, and the Statistical Reasoning Assessment (Garfield, 2003), assessing statistical reasoning ability. Results indicated statistically significant, positive relationships between preference for a rational information processing style and statistical reasoning ability; as well as between performance on RDA IIA and statistical reasoning ability. There were, however, no significant relationships between performance on RDA IIA Â and processing style preference. These findings yielded useful implications for the teaching of statistical courses and thus contribute to limited knowledge available regarding the links between processing style preference and statistical reasoning and performance, particularly in the South African context.