Anxiety, Working Memory, and Cognitive Load in Community College Students Solving Statistics Problems.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study explored the relationships between cognition and emotion during learning, explicitly focusing on statistics anxiety, cognitive load, and working memory capacity when students solve forward and backward operation statistics problems. The study contributed to knowledge building on statistics problem-solving by addressing two research questions: a) how anxiety and cognitive load relate to performance on statistics forward and backward operation problems, and b) how working memory capacity relates to statistics anxiety, cognitive load, and performance on forward and backward operation problems. The cognitive load theory and the anxiety processing efficiency theory informed the conceptual framework.Participants (n = 61) were undergraduate college students enrolled in introductory statistics courses. Five instruments were used as data sources: a) a test of statistics forward and backward operation problem-solving, b) a survey of perceived cognitive load, c) the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale, d) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and e) the Adaptive Composite Complex Span test of working memory capacity.The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that statistics anxiety was a significant negative predictor of forward and backward operation problem-solving. Cognitive load was not a significant predictor; however, it was positively associated with statistics anxiety. Furthermore, nonparametric correlational analysis revealed a complex relationship between statistics anxiety, cognitive load, working memory capacity, and statistics forward and backward operation problem-solving. Visuospatial working memory capacity was positively correlated with statistics anxiety and perceived cognitive load; however, no significant correlation was found between visuospatial working memory capacity and statistics backward operation problem-solving.Implications for students, faculty, researchers, and university administrators revealed that discussions, hands-on practice, and computational differences between forward and backward operation problem-solving are necessary to decrease anxiety and cognitive load. This study also demonstrates that educational practitioners, instructional designers, and researchers should consider individual differences such as statistics anxiety, working memory capacity, and cognitive load when designing or teaching statistics courses or conducting research on statistics education.