Exploring Student Perceptions of the Use of Open Educational Resources to Reduce Statistics Anxiety

Numerous instructional strategies have been applied to minimize statistics anxiety. Instructors are likely to consider those strategies a burden and may hesitate to apply them in their courses if there is a lack of continuous support. Open educational resources (OERs) enabled by information and communication technology have the potential to resolve this concern owing to their cost-effectiveness and to the prolific collections available. OERs can be adopted through reuse, redistribution, revision, and remix. Although a few former studies proved that technology could effectively reduce statistics anxiety, fewer studies demonstrated the effective adoption of OERs through reuse, redistribution, revision, and remix when coping with statistics anxiety. The purpose of this study was threefold. First, from earlier studies, we identified instructional strategies used to reduce statistics anxiety. Second, according to those instructional strategies, we assisted instructors in selecting and customizing OERs through reuse, redistribution, revision, and remix and in applying them in introductory statistics/quantitative research methodology courses. Third, we investigated the students’ perceptions of the use of OERs to reduce statistics anxiety. The findings indicated that students had a positive reaction to the use of OERs to reduce statistics anxiety. Through this study, we can establish a rigorous approach to adopting and customizing OERs for various instructional needs in an interdisciplinary curriculum.

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