Abstract:

Statistics education plays a crucial role in the development of scientific literacy across diverse academic fields, yet many university students experience difficulties associated with low self-efficacy, anxiety, and negative attitudes toward statistics. These affective and motivational factors influence engagement, procrastination, and academic performance, forming a complex network of relationships that remains underexplored in integrated models. This study examined the effects of self-efficacy, statistics anxiety, attitudes towards statistics, engagement in statistics, procrastination, and perceived academic performance using a structural equation modelling approach (PLS-SEM).

A sample of 668 Portuguese university students completed a questionnaire comprising these six validated constructs and some sociodemographic variables. Of the twelve hypotheses tested, seven were supported—five direct effects and two indirect effects. Statistics anxiety had a strong positive impact on procrastination, while attitudes toward statistics significantly reduced anxiety and enhanced engagement and perceived academic performance. Procrastination negatively affected academic performance. Additionally, attitudes influenced performance indirectly through sequential mediation by anxiety and procrastination, and procrastination mediated the impact of anxiety on performance. These findings highlight the central role of attitudes, the detrimental effects of anxiety, and the behavioural consequences of procrastination in shaping students’ learning outcomes. The study underscores the need for pedagogical strategies that foster positive attitudes, reduce anxiety, support engagement, and promote effective self-regulation in statistics education.

Keywords:

Statistics anxiety, attitudes towards statistics, engagement, procrastination, academic performance, PLS-SEM, higher education.