Evaluation of statistics anxiety and analysis of its influencing factors among medical students / 中华医学教育探索杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the extent of statistics anxiety and explore its influencing factors among university students majoring in medicine.Methods:The statistics anxiety rating scale (STARS) was first translated into Chinese and modified until the reliability and validity were acceptable. Through online questionnaire, the Chinese version of STARS was used to measure the level of statistics anxiety for students enrolling in the course of Medical Statistics during autumn term 2018 to spring term 2019 in the medical college of a university. The collected data were managed and analyzed by SPSS 25.0.Results:A total of 562 students took part in the survey, and 500 questionnaires were eligible and included in the final analysis. The measurement of Chinese version of STARS showed quite good reliability and validity, with item score of the whole scale being (2.31 ± 0.65) points. The proportions of students with mild, moderate and severe statistics anxiety were 41%, 56% and 3% respectively. Female students had higher extent of anxiety than male students, and undergraduates had higher extent of anxiety than postgraduates. The extent of anxiety of students with different majors from high to low were nursing > (dentistry, basic medicine and pharmacology) > (clinic medicine and public health) respectively. When controlling other factors, the influence of gender, student level and major on statistics anxiety was still statistically significant.Conclusion:Statistics anxiety is prevalent in medical college students. Professional teachers should pay more attention to students' psychological status, conduct targeted counseling to alleviate students' anxiety and help them to improve self-efficacy in statistics learning.