Structural Model of the Effects of Cognitive and Affective Factors on the Achievement of Arabic-Speaking Pre-service Teachers in Introductory Statistics

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which statistics and mathematics anxiety, attitudes toward mathematics and statistics, motivation and mathematical aptitude can explain the achievement of Arabic speaking pre-service teachers in introductory statistics. Complete data were collected from 162 pre-service teachers enrolled in an academic teacher-training program for elementary and middle schools in Israel. The data, except for the two achievement tests, were collected during statistics classes prior to the midterm examination. The majority (96%) of participants were female students with a mean age of 21. As regards variables examined in this study, only the hypothesized effect of mathematical aptitude on achievement in statistics was relatively large. The results also indicated that mathematical aptitude, mathematics anxiety, attitudes toward mathematics and statistics, and motivation, together accounted for 36% of the variance in achievement in introductory statistics for the current sample.