CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Los propósitos de la investigación que se informa fueron: (a) describir las opiniones y actitudes hacia la Estadística de estudiantes de carreras universitarias no humanísticas, tales como Ingeniería, Física, etc. y humanísticas, tales como Psicología, Ciencias de la Educación, etc. y (b) analizar la influencia sobre las opiniones y actitudes hacia la Estadística de ciertas variables, tales como: condiciones didácticas de los profesores de Matemática y/o Estadística, promedio de calificaciones obtenidas durante el secundario, opinión sobre la utilidad de la Estadística para su profesión, etc. Con tal fin fueron administrados un cuestionario de datos personales y dos escalas de actitudes hacia la Estadística construidas de acuerdo a dos métodos diferentes (Diferencial Semántico de Osgood e Intervalos Aparentemente Iguales de Thurstone). La muestra era de tipo incidental no probabilística. Estaba integrada por 229 estudiantes universitarios (64% mujeres y 36 % varones), el 68% seguía carreras no matemáticas y el 32% carreras matemáticas. Para comparar los dos grupos de estudiantes se aplicaron pruebas de diferencias de medias de muestras no correlacionadas. Los resultados obtenidos indican que los estudiantes de carreras humanísticas poseen actitudes más desfavorables hacia la Estadística que los estudiantes de carreras no humanísticas. Las condiciones didácticas de los profesores de Matemática y Estadística, el promedio de calificaciones obtenidas en Matemática durante el secundario y la opinión sobre la utilidad de la Estadística para el ejercicio de la profesión influyen en forma estadísticamente significativa sobre la formación de las actitudes hacia la Estadística. Attitudes of university students towards Statistics. It is very usual to observe in many of the students of Psychology, Sociology and Education some negative attitudes towards Statistics. In this sense we thought it would be interesting to analyze the problem. Obviously it would be of interest to change this negative attitude into a positive one, since the knowledge of Statistics is an important tool to analyze, systematize and interpret the facts of the real world. Besides Psychologists as well as Sociologists must be able to understand perfectly the data of quantitative research papers as well as the results obtained using statistical Programs such as the SPSS. The objectives of this research were: a) the description of opinions and attitudes towards Statistics from university students in non humanistic disciplines such as Engineering, Physics, Chemistry , etc versus students in humanistic careers such as Psychology and Sociology , b) to analyze the influence upon attitudes towards Statistics from variables such as didactics competences of Statistic and mathematics professors, average marks obtained at secondary school, opinions about usefulness of Statistics for their future professional role and so on. A questionnaire on personal data and two attitude scales towards Statistics were constructed. .One of them with items scaled following Osgoods Semantic Differential, with 14 bipolar adjectives. The other following the Thurstones Method of Equal-Appearing Intervals. An exploratory Factorial Analysis was carried on to determine the factors underlying intercorrelations between the scores of the subjects that evaluate (judge) the 50 items of the scale. The factorial method used was that of Principal Axes with Varimax rotation process and also Promax to obtain the simple structure. There were obtained 5 factors, which explained 75% of the variance. The final scale was reduced to 23 items. The factors depict dimensions such as likeness, trust, usefulness, anxiety and difficulty. The sample was not probabilistic but incidental with 229 university students; 64% women and 36%men. In the sample 68% were students from non mathematical disciplines and 32% from mathematical ones. To compare the two groups of students we used the mean non correlated differences test. As for the results when we analyzed the construct Statistics the comparable profiles of means obtained in the 14 scale of bipolar adjectives (Osgood scale) we found: a) comparing students from non humanistic disciplines versus humanistic ones , the first group says Statistics are more agreeable, plain, useful, clear, necessary, understanding, important, preferred, beautiful, profund, strong and pleasant. Regarding the influence of some variables on attitudes towards Statistics we observe: a) didactics ability of Statistics and Mathematics teachers, b) average marks in Secondary School Mathematics and c) the opinion on the usefulness of Statistics in their future professional role. Key words: Attitudes, Statistics, Non humanistic and humanistic disciplines