Statistics anxiety and performance: blessings in disguise

Statistics anxiety describes the apprehension that occurs when an individual is exposed to statistics content or problems and instructional situations, or evaluative contexts that deal with statistics. As statistics-anxious individuals always experience anxiety when doing statistics, statistics anxiety describes an enduring, habitual type of anxiety (Onwuegbuzie and Wilson, 2003; Macher et al., 2011). A large proportion of students identify statistics courses as the most anxiety-inducing courses in their curriculum (Zeidner, 1991). Especially in subjects such as psychology, education, or sociology, statistics anxiety is widely spread among students (Onwuegbuzie and Wilson, 2003; Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Ruggeri et al., 2008). These subjects are often chosen by students with less interest and more critical self-assessments in mathematics and science. Additionally, students often underestimate the extent of statistics in these subjects (Ruggeri et al., 2008). As a consequence, statistics anxiety is supposed to lead to manifold problems over the course of students’ statistics education. Students who experience higher levels of statistics anxiety are assumed to be more likely to procrastinate learning, e.g., to postpone writing term papers, to study for examinations, or to keep up with the weekly readings (Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Also, statistics anxiety is assumed to be related to less time spent on learning and to less efficient learning and study strategies (Macher et al., 2011, 2013). In the examination itself, statistics anxiety is related to worry and rumination and consumes processing capacity that would be needed for task performance (Papousek et al., 2012; Macher et al., 2013). Consequently, statistics anxiety often is regarded to be one of the most powerful negative factors of influence on performance in statistics courses (Onwuegbuzie andWilson, 2003). However, is this really so clear-cut? The studies in which statistics anxiety as well as performance in the examination was measured show ambiguous results concerning the relationship between statistics anxiety and performance; correlations were at best moderate, more often weak and even zero-correlations were found. Therefore, one may critically ask whether statistics anxiety really influences performance in statistics courses, and what implications this has for attaining statistical literacy. The present article takes up this question, scoping evidence from studies where statistics anxiety and performance were measured, then looking at the contribution of various indicators of performance, concluding with arguments on relevant mechanisms and implications.