Learning statistics among undergraduate tourism students: between attitude and academic achievement

This study aims to determine the attitudes of tourism students towards statistics, the relationship between students' attitudes towards statistics and learning achievement, and the relationship between attitudes towards statistics and academic achievement based on student demographics. A total of 435 students were asked to fill out a questionnaire for the Survey of Attitude Towards Statistics (SATS). Descriptive statistical data analysis, correlational analysis, and covariance analysis were performed with SPSS 26.0. The results showed that students' attitudes toward statistics before and after the learning process tended to be positive. Student attitudes towards statistics before and after the learning process were not influenced by the demographic background of students, except for the grade level variable. Simultaneously, student attitudes toward statistics and student background variables affect student academic achievements. This study's findings have implications for the development of tourism education curricula, as students in this field are increasingly expected to possess statistical literacy.