Anxiety and examination stress in statistics among postgraduate students

Abstract

Knowledge on statistics is essential not only in the academic world but also in many careers in the social sciences, pure science and engineering field. However, many students are facing difficulty in learning statistics which eventually heightens the feeling of anxiety towards the course and also the feeling of stress when it comes to assessment situation. A study was conducted with the aim to describe the statistics anxiety level and examination stress of postgraduate students. In addition, it also investigates the difference of statistical anxiety and examination stress across gender. The quantitative research involved 36 postgraduate students enrolled in a statistics course. This paper presents the results. It was found that the level of statistics anxiety was moderate while the level of examination stress among postgraduate Master's Degree students was high. Meanwhile, inferential statistics showed there is a significant difference in the statistics anxiety level but no significant difference in the level of examination stress among the postgraduate students across gender. This present study contributed to the understanding on the statistics anxiety and examination stress in the context of higher education learners.