Prior Knowledge, Sex and Students' Attitude towards Statistics: A Study on Postgraduate Education Students

Sumaiya Khanam Chowdhury^1,

¹Faculty, Institute of Education and Research, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Cite this paper:
Sumaiya Khanam Chowdhury. Prior Knowledge, Sex and Students' Attitude towards Statistics: A Study on Postgraduate Education Students. American Journal of Educational Research. 2018; 6(3):270-276. doi: 10.12691/education-6-3-14

Abstract

A vast range of studies for undergraduate students showed that, students have different attitudes towards statistics according to their sex and prior knowledge of statistics. In this study, the researcher tried to find out postgraduate students' attitudes towards statistics according to sex and level of prior experience of statistics. Two different groups of students from two different postgraduate degrees were chosen as a sample of the study. SATS-28 tool was used as an instrument. The study reveals that, the attitudes of postgraduate students towards statistics significantly differed by their sex and prior knowledge. The researcher also found a poor association between value and difficulty domain of SATS- 28 in this study. As a recommendation for future study, the research suggested to include more levels in prior experience variable to see in which stage the students actually assimilate their attitude towards statistics.

Keywords:
Prior knowledge Sex Students’ Attitude Statistics Postgraduate students

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