Attitudes towards statistics in teacher training for multicultural contexts

Abstract

This research aimed to characterize the attitudes toward statistics in teacher’s training for multicultural context. It is a quantitative study based on an Ex post facto design, in which we applied a statistical attitude scale to 276 undergraduate students of Educational Sciences from the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. We performed a descriptive analysis of data, an analysis of correlation of categories, student t tests, analysis of variance and a HSD-Tukey test with the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). The results show that the attitude of the students towards statistics is positive; that the affective, cognitive and value components are positively interrelated, and therefore this reduces the difficulty of statistics; that men and women have the same level of attitude toward statistics, and finally that there are significant differences among Intercultural Education, English and Physical Culture specialties. We conclude that the attitudes towards statistics in the training of teachers for multicultural contexts is a characteristic element in the training, and thus, it can influence the attitudinal training of their future students.