A preliminary examination of willingness and importance as moderators of the relationship between statistics anxiety and performance

Statistics coursework presents a significant challenge for college students, often associated with anxiety, which further inhibits performance. Applied to statistics anxiety and performance, the psychological flexibility model suggests that statistics anxiety may not inhibit performance when it is approached willingly in service of important values. The current study offered a preliminary consideration of statistics-related willingness and importance as moderators of the relationship between statistics anxiety and performance. Undergraduate students completed a measure of statistics anxiety, willingness to engage statistics, and the importance attributed to statistics engagement, then took a short statistics quiz. Results provided preliminary evidence that both willingness and importance moderate the relationship between statistics anxiety and performance on a statistics quiz.