ICCS 2009 Technical Report - IEA

Question 27 required students to indicate their level of trust (“completely,” “quite a lot,” “alittle,” “not at all”) in up to 14 different institutions. The level of trust reported for six of theitems was used to derive the scale students’ trust in civic institutions (INTRUST). The scale had areliability (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.84 for the pooled ICCS sample, and the country reliabilitiesranged from 0.76 to 0.89 (see Table 12.13). Table 12.14 shows the item wording as well as theitem parameters that were used for scaling. The higher values on this scale reflect greater trustin civic institutions.The items in Question 28 were a series of statements about the country of the test. Studentswere asked to indicate their level of agreement (“strongly agree,” “agree,” “disagree”, “stronglydisagree”) with those statements. Seven of the question items were used to form a scalereflecting students’ attitudes toward their country (ATTCNT). The higher scores on the scale arefrom students who held the more favorable attitudes toward their country. The reliability ofthis scale (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.82 for the pooled ICCS sample; the range for countryreliabilities was 0.74 to 0.88 (see Table 12.13). Table 2.14 presents the item parameters thatwere used for scaling.Figure 12.9 presents the results of the confirmatory factor analysis of the two item sets. Thefit indices indicated not a close but an acceptable model fit for the two-factor solution. Thefactor loadings suggested that the latent traits could be measured with these two items sets. Ahigh level of reliability as well as a high positive correlation were found between the two latentfactors of r = 0.70.Table 12.14: Item parameters for scales reflecting students’ attitudes toward civic institutions and their countryScale or Item Question/Item Wording Delta Tau(1) Tau(2) Tau(3)Trust Civ.InstitutionsHow much do you trust each of the following institutions?IS2P27A The of -0.53 -2.21 -0.15 2.37IS2P27B The of your town or city -0.59 -2.45 -0.26 2.70IS2P27C Courts of justice -0.78 -2.20 -0.22 2.41IS2P27D The police -0.65 -1.64 -0.27 1.91IS2P27E Political parties 0.47 -2.49 -0.01 2.49IS2P27F -0.10 -2.14 -0.18 2.32AttitudesTowardCountryHow much do you agree or disagree with the following statements about ?IS2P28A The is important to me -1.60 -1.13 -0.41 1.55IS2P28B The political system in works well -0.43 -2.07 -0.52 2.59IS2P28C I have great respect for -1.81 -1.30 -0.69 1.99IS2P28D In , we should be proud of what we have -1.72 -1.10 -0.74 1.85achievedIS2P28F I am proud to live in -1.77 -1.28 -0.42 1.69IS2P28G shows a lot of respect for the environment -0.43 -1.97 -0.12 2.09IS2P28H Generally speaking, is a better country -0.96 -1.56 -0.21 1.78to live in than most other countriesSCALING PROCEDURES FOR ICCS questionnaire ITEMS185