Assessing statistics attitudes among college students: Psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Survey of Attitudes toward Statistics (SATS)

The aim of the present research was to test the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS) in order to acquire a valid instrument to measure attitudes inside the Italian educational context. The SATS was administered to Italian-speaking undergraduate students enrolled in introductory statistics courses. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the four-factor structure of the scale, and good indices for both reliability and validity were obtained. A multi-group analysis confirmed the time invariance (beginning vs. end of the course) of the SATS, with a minor exception. Given the invariance across time, latent mean structures analysis revealed small to large significant changes in the four attitude dimensions. The present study provided evidence for the validity and reliability of the SATS when applied to the Italian learning framework.