Assessing the Antecedents of Math Anxiety

Research Article Critique

The purpose of this critique is to critically review an article by Amanda S. Williams, “Worry, Intolerance of Uncertainty, and Statistics Anxiety” (May 2013). This type of critique is important because far too many college students struggle with their math requirements for graduation due to anxiety over their abilities and anticipated suboptimal performance. The critique includes an analysis of the statistical data presented to determine whether they support the conclusions reached by the author or not. Finally, the critique provides a summary of the article and key findings that emerged from the research process in the conclusion.

Research topic and purpose for conducting the research and its objectives

The overarching purpose of this study was to examine the association between intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety among a sample of American college students. The author explains that the study was needed to fill a gap in the existing research by examining the cognitive processes associated with statistics anxiety among 97 college students to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing students' experiences with this type of anxiety.

The author’s hypothesis or research question

The study’s hypotheses were as follows:

1. Intolerance of uncertainty is significantly correlated with worry in statistics students at pretest;

2. Worry is significantly correlated with six types of statistics anxiety at pretest; and,

3. Student levels of intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety would be significantly reduced from pretest to posttest.

Briefly state the research methodology

The study’s research design was an experiment using pre- and post-test data analysis. The means and standard deviations for intolerance of uncertainty and worry as well as the six dimensions of statistics anxiety were presented in tabular form.

An in-depth critique of the article

The study’s purpose was timely and justified given the challenges that many college students encounter when taking higher math courses. The author’s guiding hypotheses were clearly stated, and were congruent with the study’s introduction and purpose. the author concisely operationalized the key variables of intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety and used instruments with known reliability and validity (e.g., the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-12, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale) for pre-and post-test measures of each variable as the sources of data. Likewise, the study’s research design and methodology were clearly identified and the data gathering procedures were explained in detail.

Although no pilot test was conducted, the study’s population of interest was clearly defined as 97 participants from a college of education at a large public southwestern university. The participants consisted of students from three sections of a graduate-level introductory statistics course during the fall and spring semesters of 2010. The study used a volunteer sample from this cohort and the size of the sample was regarded as appropriate given the no compensation was offered. In addition, the study used descriptive statistics and statistical analyses (Pearson’s r correlation coefficients, ANOVA and MANOVA) which were calculated for each research variable to confirm or refute the guiding hypotheses.

On the one hand the tables display all of the results of the analyses of collected data from each of the instruments. On the other hand, though, the cryptic columnar headings for each of the tables are arcane and require re-review of the methodology section to determine what they mean. Moreover, the presentation of the tabular results in graphic form would facilitate interpretation and comprehension. This addition would especially benefit the presentation of the comparisons of the pre- and post-test data.

Notwithstanding these constraints, however, the findings that emerged from the data analyses provided complete or partial confirmation of the guiding hypotheses. For example, hypothesis one (e.g., intolerance of uncertainty is significantly correlated with worry in statistics students at pretest) was supported and hypothesis two (e.g., worry is significantly correlated with six types of statistics anxiety at pretest) was partially supported. In addition, hypothesis three (e.g., student levels of intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety would be significantly reduced from pretest to posttest) was also partially supported by the study’s findings.

The study’s limitations were also discussed, including most especially the recommendation for the use of a control group and fewer variables which would strengthen future research in this area and improve the generalizability of the results. Likewise, the author concedes that some of the findings that emerged from the data analyses were fairly intuitive and were expected. The author also provided an exhaustive list of citations for all of the cited references in APA format.

In sum, this was an ambitious study that examined multiple antecedents of statistics anxiety. Taken together and excepting the above-described limitations, it is reasonable to conclude that this article was well researched. It is important to note, though, that the above recommendations would strengthen the validity of this and similar studies in the future.

Conclusion

The research showed that the article by Williams (2013) successfully examined the association between intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety among a sample of American college students. The research aimed to fill a gap in existing literature by exploring the cognitive processes related to statistics anxiety and providing a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing students' experiences in this area. The study's hypotheses were clearly stated, and the research design employed pre- and post-test data analysis. The use of reliable and valid instruments for data collection, along with the appropriate statistical analyses, contributed to the study's rigor. The findings partially supported the guiding hypotheses, confirming the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and worry, as well as the correlation between worry and statistics anxiety. Additionally, there was evidence of reduced levels of intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and statistics anxiety from pretest to posttest. However, the presentation of results in tables could have been more user-friendly, and graphical representation would have enhanced interpretation. The study acknowledged limitations, such as the absence of a control group and the inclusion of multiple variables, suggesting directions for future research. In the final analysis, while this study was timely, ambitious and well-researched, implementing the suggested recommendations would enhance the validity and generalizability of similar studies in the future.