Relationship between Graduate Students' Statistics Self-Efficacy, Statistics Anxiety, Attitude toward Statistics, and Social Support

Statistics plays an integral role in graduate programs. However, numerous intra- and interpersonal factors may lead to successful completion of needed coursework in this area. The authors examined the extent of the relationship between self-efficacy to learn statistics and statistics anxiety, attitude towards statistics, and social support of 166 graduate students enrolled in master's and doctoral programs within colleges of education. Results indicated that statistics anxiety and attitude towards statistics were statistically significant predictors of self-efficacy to learn statistics, yet social support was not a statistically significant predictor of self-efficacy. Insight into how this population responds to statistics courses and implications for educators as well as students are presented.