Statistics Anxiety and Math Aversion among Advertising Students

Abstract

Do advertising students really dislike math? Or is this question a manifestation of frustrated media planning course professors?Do women perceive they are poorer at math than men? Do students with better grades like math more? Are those interested in creative jobs more likely to be math averse than those wishing to pursue management-oriented advertising jobs?Or are these assumptions based on unfair stereotypes?There is scant research to address these questions, but the answers would be helpful to advertising educators, particularly to those who teach courses that include math.Surveys of advertising professionals clearly indicate that students who intend to work in the advertising business need to have math skills and understand statistics. A survey of advertising media directors, planners, buyers and executives (Lloyd, Slater & Robbs, 2000) revealed professionals believe students should have a mastery of basic math, percentages and index numbers. The study also indicated that professionals were concerned that newly hired advertising graduates lacked knowledge of media math.An earlier study (Martin & Lloyd, 1992) revealed that over half of media teachers surveyed used media planning software and were therefore spending less time teaching skills oriented material, such as media math. Crowley (1987) interviewed several agency media directors in an attempt to identify content for the advertising media planning course. The professionals in the study mentioned statistics as a need-to-know skill.There is clearly a need for advertising students to have math and statistics skills to work in the advertising profession; however, advertising professors sense an aversion among students to learning such skills. This paper will attempt to explore the unanswered questions about advertising students' level of anxiety toward math and statistics and determine differences, if any, among categories of students who claim to be math averse.Review of the LiteratureAttitudes Toward StatisticsThere is a substantial body of research dating back to the 1950s (i.e. Bendig & Hughes, 1954), probing students' attitudes towards math and statistics. Studies have documented both "math anxiety" and "statistics anxiety" (Roberts & Saxe, 1982; Adams & Holcomb, 1986) and define them generally as a fear that students have toward working with numbers and taking the statistics course (See Birenbaum & Eylath, 1994, for a historical review of statistics anxiety). Other studies have examined the variables related to negative attitudes toward math and statistics (Feinberg & Halperin, 1978; Roberts & Bilderback, 1980; Benson, 1989; Sutarso, 1992b; Schau, et al, 1995; Tremblay, Gardner & Heipel, 2000), though no studies can be found that specifically examine advertising majors' attitudes toward math and statistics.Numerous studies showed a high correlation between positive attitudes toward statistics and high course grades (Wise, 1985; Benson, 1989; Schau, et al, 1995). Anxiety was associated with lower achievement in statistics (Tremblay, Gardner, & Heipel, 2000).Sutarso (1992a) created an instrument that gauges students' attitudes toward statistics by measuring six underlying dimensions. Sutarso used a sample of education and business students in developing the instrument and found it to have strong reliability and validity. He also identified some variables that related to students' anxiety in learning statistics including student achievement, preknowledge of statistics, school, and current class level. Sutarso (1992b) found no relationship between statistics anxiety and other variables such as gender and ethnicity.Feinberg and Halperin (1978) identified several variables related to performance in introductory statistics including anxiety about math, mathematics achievement and previous math experience. Age, gender and academic major appeared to be unrelated to students' success or failure in statistics. …