Aksentijevic Aleksandar
Department of Psychology, University of Roehampton , London, UK.
Front Psychol. 2015 Oct 12;6:1558. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01558. eCollection 2015.
Notwithstanding the popularity of psychology courses throughout the world, educators face a constant and difficult problem of overcoming the fear of and dislike for statistics which represents one of the pillars of modern psychological science. Although the issue is complex and multifaceted, here I argue that "statophobia" might represent a rational and justified response to the sense of unease felt in contact with abstract statistical concepts which are often vague, circular or ill-defined. I illustrate the problem by briefly discussing two myths about the nature of probability and statistics, namely that probability and statistics generate knowledge and that the fault for not understanding probability lies solely with the subjective cognition which is incapable of comprehending deeper mathematical truth. I argue that the confident presentation of statistical methods hides numerous conceptual blind spots that students might be aware of and that need to be addressed before other causes of statistics anxiety can be tackled successfully.
尽管心理学课程在全球都很受欢迎，但教育工作者面临着一个持续且棘手的问题，即如何克服对统计学的恐惧和厌恶，而统计学是现代心理科学的支柱之一。尽管这个问题复杂且多面，但在此我认为，“统计恐惧症”可能是对接触抽象统计概念时所感到的不安情绪的一种合理且正当的反应，这些抽象统计概念往往模糊、循环或定义不明确。我通过简要讨论关于概率和统计学本质的两个误区来说明这个问题，即概率和统计学能产生知识，以及不理解概率的过错完全在于无法理解更深层次数学真理的主观认知。我认为，对统计方法的自信呈现掩盖了许多学生可能意识到的概念盲点，在能够成功解决统计学焦虑的其他原因之前，这些盲点需要得到解决。
