The Role of Affective and Motivational Factors in Statistics Performance in University StudentsEssay Preview: The Role of Affective and Motivational Factors in Statistics Performance in University StudentsReport this essayWhen faced with the prospect of having to complete a statistics course at university, students either fall into a state of anxiety about failing the course or they form a belief that they will do well. This is due to their perception of self-efficacy. Perceived self-efficacy is, as stated by Bandura (1994) & Pajares (2002), the construct of a persons beliefs in their ability to perform in certain tasks including academic tasks. It has been shown that people who were confident in their abilities to achieve well were found to be more successful in their achievement level which in this case was achievement in a statistics course (Schutz, Drogosz, White, & DiStefano, 1998). For self-efficacy to be effective there must be more than a perceived result but also a perceived ability to master the particular task faced. While self-efficacy is formed by previous experiences of similar tasks and their respective results, it is also affected by anxiety and stress and thus lowers ones perceived ability to achieve a certain outcome (Bandalos, Yates, & Thorndlike-Christ 1995).
Past research has presented evidence to show that there are strong negative correlations between test anxiety and self efficacy (Bandalos et al., 1995; Bandalos, Finney, & Geske 2003; Schutz et al., 1998). Bandalos et al. (1995) also found that test anxiety negatively correlated with statistics achievement. On the contrary, Bandalos et al. (2003) found that there wasnt a relationship between test anxiety and statistics achievement. Gal & Ginsburg (1994) present evidence that shows that affective states like test anxiety cause a loss of confidence in the students and have a tendency to pull them into a “cycle of failure” where they continually fail because they have a belief that they cant succeed. Bandalos et al. (2003) found that statistics achievement had a relationship with past achievement and self efficacy.
One more thing to add here… it has been shown that stress, even when induced at a high level, can have a strong effect on test performance by changing the way attention we make use of tests.
The study of how stress influences test performance was published at Harvard and UCLA, [19 April 1986], and found that stress caused a positive relationship between self-efficacy (positive correlation rate in this study) and self-efficacy (positive correlation rate in Gal et al., 1995a; Gal & Ginsburg & Gal et al., 1989) that was not affected by how the stressant-rich environment was. The positive correlation rates in Gal & and Gal & were significantly higher when the stress was combined with positive correlations with measures of self-efficacy.
While the results presented here may not necessarily reflect general beliefs about the importance of anxiety as measured in a clinical setting (e.g. depression and post-traumatic stress disorder), they certainly indicate the importance of stress as the tool used to improve students’ abilities to test for and improve themselves. Stress is one of the strongest social and psychological factors in making test performance relevant to student life through the application of test questions and tests, but for many learning methods and tests, this is only as much of a factor as the stress themselves.
While stress cannot be adequately described as causative for test performance, certain associations are evident when viewed in relation to test performance.
The effects of stress on test results appear to be additive and even additive, depending on factors such as class level, time spent in a subject area (e.g. reading more than 6 hours per week or teaching, etc.), number of repetitions taken (e.g. a 2nd grade course, a 1st grade assignment, an equivalent grade exam required for a 2nd grade student), and the test used. Moreover, both variables tend to be related to the effects of stress.
We were not able to find any statistically significant results when considering the factors listed above when we performed the cross-sectional analyses of the students who took a stress test in this study.
Finally, in an attempt to quantify results that can be obtained as a function of time in a group from the study (a measure of students’ performance on tests), we have examined the effects of stress on the relationship between academic performance and achievement in our study. Although it does not appear to be as important as the performance associated with stress alone on test results, some stress also contributes to self-efficacy, thereby increasing a student’s achievement compared to, say, students who are trained to study hard and may be less emotionally and socially vulnerable, yet may struggle to do so.