The role of achievement goals, academic motivation, and learning strategies in statistics anxiety: Testing a causal model

摘要

The present study aims at analyzing the effect of achievement goals on statistics anxiety through academic motivation and statistics learning approaches. In doing so, 345 undergraduate students (68 male and 277 female) from the faculties of psychology and educational sciences of Tehran city were selected using census sampling method. The participants answered the questionnaires prepared on achievement goals, academic motivation, learning strategies and, statistics anxiety. The Path Analysis method indicated that mastery goals have direct negative effects on statistics anxiety(p<0.05). Performance-Approach and Performance-Avoidance goals affect on statistics anxiety only through extrinsic motivation and cognitive strategies. Mastery as well as Performance-Approach goals have direct positive effects on intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic one respectively (p<0.05). All the three variables of academic motivation directly influence statistics anxiety. Intrinsic motivation influences the meta-cognitive strategies and the extrinsic motivation and a-motivation affect the learning strategies directly and positively. All in all the findings indicate that achievement goals affect statistics anxiety more often through academic motivation and learning strategies.