The numbers tell it all: students don't like numbers!

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Higher Education Studies
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Student interest in quantitative versus non-quantitative courses is crucial for higher education but understudied.
• Prior research on course interest is confounded by end-of-course evaluations (Student Evaluation of Teaching - SET), not initial interest.
• This study uniquely assesses first-year undergraduate interest in quantitative courses before enrollment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate first-year undergraduate students' interest in quantitative versus non-quantitative psychology courses.
• To identify potential gender differences in interest towards quantitative coursework.
• To explore the implications of student interest levels for course evaluation and curriculum development.

Main Methods:

• Survey administered to 340 undergraduate students.
• Students rated their interest in 44 described psychology courses.
• Analysis focused on interest differences between quantitative and non-quantitative courses and by gender.

Main Results:

• Student interest in quantitative courses, particularly statistics, was significantly lower than in non-quantitative courses (mean difference nearly 6 SDs).
• Women expressed less interest in quantitative courses compared to men.
• Low interest suggests potential issues with course enrollment and future career paths in quantitative fields.

Conclusions:

• Standardized Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) metrics may be inappropriate for comparing quantitative and non-quantitative courses.
• Using uniform SET standards could incentivize teaching to evaluations rather than student learning.
• Universities prioritizing student learning should reconsider reliance on SETs, while those prioritizing satisfaction might reduce quantitative offerings.
• Lack of interest in quantitative courses may deter students from pursuing graduate studies and independent data analysis skills.