Statistical Literacy and Attitudes Towards Statistics of Romanian Undergraduate Students

Statistical literacy is the capacity to challenge statistics encountered in everyday life (Gal, 2002) and has become a key competence for the entire work-force in today’s data-driven society. However, teaching statistics to non-economists has some particularities determined by their anxiety towards the subject. In order to have a better approach in teaching Statistics to this type of audience, the paper provides an analysis regarding students’ initial level of statistical literacy, the attitudes and beliefs towards Statistics, in the case of undergraduate students of the “Applied Modern Language” program under Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Using the models developed by Gal (2002) and Watson (2003), the results prove that basic statistical literacy skills like graph analysis or table reading are sound, while mathematical level is well below average, correlated with a high anxiety regrading mathematics and preconceptions about complexity of statistics.