We need to talk about statistical anxiety. A review of the evidence around statistical anxiety in the context of quantitative methods pedagogy

Recent reviews of the social research pedagogy literature conclude that there is a lack of pedagogical culture informing the teaching of research methods in social science. In this paper, we draw together main themes from the statistical anxiety (SA) literature, in order to prepare a more systematic and empirically grounded knowledge base from which to develop a research programme in quantitative methods teaching. It is regularly put forward that statistical anxiety has a negative influence on learning quantitative methods it is also suggested that women are more anxious in this context than men. Research examining the relationship between statistical anxiety and performance is summarized. A secondary analysis investigating the question of whether women are more likely to experience statistical anxiety than men is presented. The results show young women are more likely to experience anxiety than young men, but older women are less likely to experience anxiety than older men. Older men also have higher chance of experiencing anxiety than younger men. There were no significant differences evident between older women and younger women. In conclusion, the relationship between gender and SA is shown to be more complex than previous research has suggested. The review of previous findings indicates it is currently unclear that statistical anxiety has the negative influence it is often stated as having.