Unpublished Work-in-Progress
Terry, J., Lea, C., & Field, A. P. (Manuscript in Preparation)
Statistics anxiety is defined as being distinct from maths anxiety (Cruise et al. 1985, Chew & Dillon, 2014), yet very few empirical studies have tested this assumption. Existing findings suggest the ubiquitously used measure of statistics anxiety, the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS; Cruise et al. 1985) measures something distinct from maths anxiety scales (e.g., Paechter et al., 2017), but reported differences are based primarily upon correlations, which provide incomplete evidence, and could be due to various methodological limitations in the studies. We re-evaluated the distinctiveness of the STARS and the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Scale (R-MARS; Baloğlu & Zelhart, 2007) in three novel ways using exploratory factor analysis, latent profile analysis, and a between-subjects experimental procedure in two samples of undergraduate psychology students (n = 465; n = 265). Results from each of the three pre-registered analyses in both samples support the conclusion that the STARS and R-MARS are measuring overlapping constructs, suggesting we have unearthed another jangle fallacy (i.e., two measures treated as unique that are actually the same; Kelley, 1927).
Terry, J. & Field, A. P. (Manuscript in Preparation)
Terry, J., O’Connor, P., Blything, R., & Field, A. P.