ICCS 2009 Technical Report - IEA

Six of the question items were used to form the scale reflecting students’ perceptions of influenceon decisions about school (STUDINF). Higher values on the scale correspond to greater perceivedinfluence on decisions. The scale reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.88 for the pooled ICCSsample, and the country reliabilities ranged from 0.72 to 0.90 (see Table 12.3). The itemparameters that were used for scaling are shown in Table 12.4.Question 18 contained items assessing the degree to which students agreed or disagreed withstatements about relationships in their school. Response options ranged from “strongly agree”to “strongly disagree.” Five of the seven items were used to derive the scale students’ perceptions ofstudent−teacher relations at school (STUTREL), which had a reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.78for the pooled ICCS sample. Country reliabilities ranged from 0.53 to 0.85 (see Table 12.3).Table 12.4 shows the item wording as well as the item parameters that were used for scaling.The higher values on this scale reflect perceptions of strong relations between students andteachers at school.In Question 19, students were asked to indicate their degree of agreement (range “stronglyagree” to “strongly disagree”) with statements about the value of participating in certain eventsat school. All five question items were included in the scale students’ perceptions of the value ofparticipation at school (VALPARTS). Higher scores on this scale correspond to a higher extent ofagreement with statements about the value of participation at school. The reliability of this scale(Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.73 for the pooled ICCS sample. Reliabilities across countries rangedfrom 0.54 to 0.81 (see Table 12.3). Table 12.4 shows the item parameters that were used forscaling.Figure 12.4 presents the results for a model with a four-factor solution for all items relatedto school context. The RMSEA of 0.041 indicated a close model fit, and the NNFI and CFIalso indicated satisfactory model fit. Inspection of the item factor loadings indicated that, foreach of the factors, the items provided a good measurement of the respective underlying latenttrait. The results also showed positive correlations between the four latent traits. Somewhathigher correlations were found between STUTREL (student−teacher relations) and STUDINF(perceptions of student influence) as well as between STUTREL and VALPARTS (value ofstudent participation).Students’ democratic value beliefsThe ICCS student questionnaire included a set of items measuring students’ beliefs aboutdemocratic values. Five items from Question 20 were used to derive the scale students’ supportfor democratic values (DEMVAL). The question required students to state their level of agreement(“strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”) with statements about what a society should be like;the higher values on the scale correspond to greater support for democratic values. The scale’sreliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.65 for the pooled ICCS sample, and the country reliabilitiesranged from 0.56 to 0.78 (see Table 12.5). Table 12.6 shows the item parameters that wereused for scaling.The results of the confirmatory factor analysis of these items (see Figure 12.5) showedsatisfactory model fit for the one-factor solution. Item IS2P20F (“people should always be freeto criticize the government publicly”) had a somewhat lower factor loading than the other itemsin this scale.SCALING PROCEDURES FOR ICCS questionnaire ITEMS171