Statistics Anxiety and Instructor Immediacy

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between instructor immediacy and statistics anxiety. It was predicted that students receiving immediacy would report lower levels of statistics anxiety. Using a pretest-posttest-control group design, immediacy was measured using the Instructor Immediacy scale. Statistics anxiety was measured using the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS). Results indicated that instructor immediacy is significantly related to six factors of statistics anxiety, with immediacy explaining between 6% and 20% of the variance in students' anxiety levels. Instructors should attempt to increase their use of immediacy behaviors in order to decrease anxiety.

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