Measuring university students’ approaches to learning statistics : a cross-cultural and multilingual version of the ASSIST

Abstract

University students often encounter difficulties in statistics courses that hinder their progress in the attainment of their degree. In identifying variables that may constitute barriers faced by students, it is important to investigate the approach that students adopt in learning statistics. Focusing on issue of measurement, the present paper aimed to develop a brief version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST), one of the well-known measures of a student's approach to learning. The final goal was to obtain a cross-cultural and multilingual version of the ASSIST to investigate learning approaches in multinational research. Results indicated that the abbreviated Spanish, Italian and English versions of the ASSIST showed good psychometric properties and the three-factor structure of the original version (Deep, Surface and Strategic approaches) was confirmed.6 page(s