Attitude and Anxiety towards Research, Its Influence on the Students’ Achievement in the Course

The study used the Attitude Towards Research Scale devised by Elena T. Papanasatasiou in 2005 to investigate the attitudes and anxiety level of the students towards research and its influence on their academic achievement. Three hundred thirty eight (338) undergraduate students from the College of Arts and Sciences who had already taken a research course participated in the study. The study used two designs, the descriptive survey and associational research to have a better understanding of the students’ attitudes and anxiety towards research. Participants’ responses were analyzed through mean, and Pearson correlation using SPSS version 20. Overall, the students have a positive attitude towards research though most of them display a negative attitude on difficulty of research. The male students are more positive compared to their female counterparts. As predicted those with a high academic grade display a high positive attitude towards research. Moreover, the students show anxiousness to research by admitting that it is stressful. However, a no correlation was obtained between the students’ academic achievement and usefulness of research to profession and usefulness of research and positive attitudes.