4. Monitoring Attitudes and Beliefs in Statistics Education

Students’ attitudes and beliefs can impede (or assist) learning statistics, and may affect the extent to which students will develop useful statistical thinking skills and apply what they have learned outside the classroom. This chapter alerts educators to the importance of assessing student attitudes and beliefs regarding statistics, describes and evaluates different methods developed to assess where students stand in this regard, provides suggestions for using and extending existing assessments, and outlines future research and instructional needs.