Developing and Validating an Instrument to Measure Students' Attitude towards Electrochemistry

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop and validate an instrument to measure students' attitude towards electrochemistry. The Attitude towards Electrochemistry Scale (ATECS) was developed to measure students' attitude towards electrochemistry. The ATECS was piloted and modified from an initial 20 items to 14 items. The construct validity of the 14 items was determined using factor analysis.  The Cronbach's alpha (α) value of the modified ATECS was .906. This provided a strong evidence of reliability. Principal components factor analysis was performed on the 14 items in ATECS with varimax rotation. The Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was significant χ² = (261.232), p< 0.05, indicating that correlations between items were sufficiently large for factor analysis.  Also, the KMO value of sampling adequacy was .606. Four factors were extracted based on Kaiser's criterion. The statistical data revealed that the ATECS possesses good construct validity and can be used to determine students' attitude towards electrochemistry.