Assessing student attitudes toward undergraduate introductory business statistics

This study measures student attitudes toward undergraduate introductory business statistics. The Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS) is used to measure pre-course and post-course attitudes. Two distinct instructional methods are studied. First, a traditional instructional method is studied in terms of its relationship to student attitudes. Second, a reformed instructional method is studied in terms of its relationship to student attitudes. The reformed method is drawn from recent literature on statistics instructional innovations. Reported student attitudes for each instructional method, both pre-course and post-course, were analyzed using descriptive statistical analyses. Within the context of transformative learning theory, this study explores the potential importance of student attitude on developing the transferable process of statistical thinking.