Universidad Veracruzana

Conventional wisdom among research methods professors is that students dread research methods courses. In fact, much of the existing scholarship regarding teaching research methods begins with anecdotal accounts of students’ disdain, fear, and anxiety associated with completing research methods requirements (e.g., Leming 1979; Wagennar 1982; Schutt, Blalock, and Wagenaar 1984; Cutler 1987; Denham 1997). The “fact” regarding students’ attitudes is so widely known that Leming (1979) offers an article-length discussion of ways to assuage these fears on the first day of a research methods course. Although this notion appears to be widely “known” among those who instruct methods courses (Fife 2008), very little research actually examines students’ attitudes regarding research methods. The current study explores four aspects of students’ attitudes toward research methods— namely, affect, difficulty, interest, and competence— by comparing the attitudes of students who have and have not completed a research methods course.