Publication Date

Summer 2010

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Ronald F. Rogers

Keywords

anxiety, concept maps, mental models, statistics, statistics anxiety, undergraduate

Subject Areas

Psychology, Experimental; Education, Educational Psychology

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to study the use of concept mapping in an

undergraduate statistics course in order to examine the effects on statistics anxiety and

academic performance by means of a two-group quasi-experimental design. Two

undergraduate statistics classes were recruited for this study with one serving as the

treatment (concept map) group and one serving as the control (standard instruction)

group. It was hypothesized that the use of concept mapping would decrease the statistics

anxiety and improve the academic performance of students in the concept map group

when compared with the control group. The statistics anxiety of the concept map group

decreased more than that of the control group over the course of the semester, but the

group differences in anxiety were not found to be statistically significant. The academic

performance of both the concept map and control groups remained relatively stable

throughout the course of the semester, and the groups did not significantly differ on

academic performance measures. Significant differences were found between the

concept map and control group on the interpretation anxiety subscale of the statistical

anxiety measure used in this study and between the proficient and non-proficient concept

map user scores on the computational section of the third academic performance

measure. The study hypotheses were not supported. It is suggested that future research

include less concept map training, more specific instruction for concept map creation, and

investigation of particular student groups.

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