Removing the Angst From Statistics

This paper presents the results of a case study investigating the use of video resources in teaching statistics proven to have their impact on student learning outcomes which positively affect the student understanding of topics and reduce students’ anxiety. A two-way ANOVA is utilized to analyze the sample data from forty post-graduate students in the Health Informatics at University of Wollongong. The findings from the study show that male students are significantly more confident in their understanding of statistics topics e.g. writing meaningful paragraphs about variables (p=0.014, F=6.684), producing and interpreting scatter plots and correlations (p=0.007, F=8.388); and less anxious in working with numbers (p=0.014, F=6.691) than female students. International students are also significantly more confident in their understanding of statistics topics e.g. determining probabilities from tables (p=0.037, F=4.689), producing and using regression output (p=0.008, F=7.835); and less anxious in several aspects compared to domestic students. There is a significant difference between male and female respondents in the scale of video resources impact on making students feel more anxious or comfortable such as taking the subject that involves mathematics (p=0.029, F=5.269) and computing (p=0.016, F=6.482). However, no significant interaction was found between gender (male versus female) and location of students (international versus domestic) on student perceived competency with the statistics topics, changed in perspective after completing the subject, and video resources impact.