The Relationship Between Statistical Attitude And Statistical Self-efficacy Of Medical Students And Their Influence On Statistical Achievement

BackgroundMedical Statistics is an important basic course in the curriculum system of higher medical education,but its abstract concepts and complex formulas make it difficult for medical students to understand and master,and even fear the statistics course.In recent years,many colleges and universities have made a lot of active exploration and research in the external factors such as statistics teaching content and teaching methods.However,with medical students as the research subject,the research on the internal factors affecting the effect of statistics teaching,such as statistical attitude and statistical self-efficacy,has not been paid enough attention.Foreign studies have shown that students’ attitude and self-efficacy towards statistics can directly affect their learning interest,knowledge understanding,classroom performance,and even the application of statistical knowledge in their careers.At present,there are few domestic related researches,and there are no statistical attitudes and statistical self-efficacy survey scales that can be used publicly in the existing literature.The current situation of Chinese medical students’statistical attitude and statistical self-efficacy,the main influencing factors and the relationship with statistical performance need to be further confirmed.Objectives1.To transform the Survey of the Attitudes Toward Statistics-36（SATS-36）and the Current Statistics Self-efficacy（CSSE）into Chinese and assess their reliability and validity to evaluate their applicability in China.2.To investigate the current situation of medical students’ statistical attitude and statistical self-efficacy,analyze the influencing factors of medical students’statistical attitude and statistical self-efficacy,and explore the relationship between statistical attitude and statistical self-efficacy and its impact on statistical scores,so as to provide reference basis for the teaching reform of medical statistics.MethodsUsing the convenient sampling method,the undergraduate and graduate students who offered the course of medical statistics in 2018-2019 academic year of Cheeloo College of Medicine,Shandong University were taken as the research objects,and the Sinicized SATS-36 and CSSE scale were used as measurement tools to uniformly design the questionnaire,and the online survey was carried out through the questionnaire platform.The questionnaire results were statistically analyzed by IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 software,the consistency reliability of the scale was evaluated by Cronbach’s a coefficient,and the structural validity of the scale was evaluated by factor analysis.The basic statistical methods include descriptive statistics,independent sample t-test or Wilcoxon rank sum test,oneway ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test,Pearson correlation and Spearman correlation analysis,multiple linear regression analysis.And Structural Equation Model was used to analyze the relationship between statistical attitude,self-efficacy and statistical course achievement.Results1.Five hundred and ninety eight valid questionnaires were obtained.Cronbach’s a of Chinese SATS-36 scale is 0.898,Cronbach’s a of 6 dimensions is between 0.628 and 0.882.The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the Chinese version of SATS-36 supported the six factors model of the original scale,The fitting index was CMIN/DF=3.98,RMR=0.042,RMSEA=0.071,GFI=0.936,CFI=0.958,TLI=0.941,IFI=0.958.Cronbach’s a of Chinese version of CSSE scale is 0.971.One common factor was extracted by exploratory factor analysis,and the contribution rate of cumulative variance was 72.79%.2.The score of SATS-36 was 4.83±0.63;The scores of each dimension from high to low were:Effort（6.42±0.80）,Value（5.92±0.85）,Interest（5.17±1.19）,Cognitive Competence（4.64±0.95）,Affect（4.56±1.12）and Difficulty（2.73±0.75）.The score of CSSE was 3.82±1.12.There were significant differences in the scores of SATS-36 and CSSE among medical students of different gender,educational level,major and previous mathematics learning ability（P<0.05）.3.The results of multiple linear regression showed that gender,educational level,major and previous mathematics learning ability were the influencing factors of statistical attitude.Gender,major and previous mathematics learning ability were the influencing factors of statistical self-efficacy.4.The results of correlation analysis showed that there was a moderate positive correlation between statistical attitude and statistical self-efficacy（rs=0.471,P<0.05）;There was a weak positive correlation between statistical attitude and statistical achievement（rs=0.229,P<0.05）;There was a weak positive correlation between statistical efficacy and statistical performance（rs=0.201,P<0.05）.5.The results of multiple linear regression analysis and Structural Equation Analysis show that statistical attitude can predict medical students’ statistical selfefficacy,and statistical attitude can positively predict statistical performance,but statistical self-efficacy can’t predict statistical performance.Conclusions1.The Chinese version of SATS-36 scale and CSSE scale have good reliability and validity,which can be used and verified by relevant domestic research.2.On the whole,medical students surveyed in this study were fairly positive toward the discipline of statistics.Medical students are willing to make efforts in the study of statistical courses,but they have obvious fear of difficulties;The statistical self-efficacy of medical students is above the middle level.3.The main influencing factors of medical students’ statistical attitude included gender,educational level,maj or and previous mathematics learning ability;The main influencing factors of statistical self-efficacy were gender,major and previous mathematics learning ability.4.Students who had positive attitude toward statistics were more likely to have higher self-efficacy and better course performance.Teachers should pay attention to medical students’ learning attitude,especially need to focus on the females,undergraduates,nursing students and students with low self-reported mathematical ability.Necessary measures should be taken for their learning disabilities to reform the teaching method,guide students to cultivate a more positive attitude and increase enthusiasm for learning so as to improve academic performance.