What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

Appendix 2: Attitudinal scales used in the survey
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Appendix 2
Attitudinal scales used
in the survey
Please note that the data collected from the survey
questions described below will be reported in a future
publication. (The research survey is reproduced in
Appendix 1).
Thinking about school question
In order to contextualise the findings from the
‘Attitudes towards Learning about the Holocaust
scale’ (survey question 91), students were asked
to identify what they thought the purpose of school
was, aside from preparing for examinations (survey
question 13).
The introduction to this question said: ‘An
important thing that schools do is prepare students
for exams like GCSEs, to help them get jobs and/or
go on to further education. From the list below please
tick one other important thing that schools should do
for young people’. Students were then asked to pick
one option from the following:
■■
teach young people to help those who are less
fortunate than themselves
■■
teach young people about what is morally right
and wrong
■■
teach young people how to behave well and
follow the rules
■■
teach young people how to value and respect
people from different cultures
■■
encourage young people to think for themselves.
‘Just world’ beliefs
The Beliefs in a Just World (Others) Scale – adapted
for use with adolescents by Fox et al. (2010) from
the Lipkus (1991) Just World scale – was used to
measure the extent to which respondents believe the
world is a just place and that people get what they
deserve (survey question 14). The scale comprises
seven items including, for example, the statement
‘I feel that people’s efforts are noticed and rewarded’.
Responses are made using a four-point Likert
scale where 1 = ‘strongly disagree’ and 4 = ‘strongly
agree’. A mean score for the seven items was
calculated for each respondent, so that a high score
represents strong beliefs in a just world. Fox et al.
(2010) reported a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87 when
using this subscale with a sample of young people
aged 11–16 years, indicating that the scale has
good reliability. Similarly, the scale was found to be a
reliable measure when completed by students in this
study (α = 0.81).
Attitudes towards equal rights for
immigrants
The Attitudes Towards Equal Rights for Immigrants
Scale (Schulz et al. 2010) was used in the 2009
International Civic and Citizenship Education Study
(ICCS). The authors found that the scale had a high
level of internal reliability (α = 0.90) for the combined
international dataset.
In our survey, the scale was introduced with the
following information: ‘People sometimes move from
one country to another, and are often known as
“immigrants”’. Students were then presented with
a list of statements about immigrants and asked to
indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with
each item, using a four-point Likert scale in which 1 =
‘strongly disagree’ and 4 = ‘strongly agree’. A mean
score was calculated for each student and the higher
the score, the more positive attitudes that students
expressed towards the rights of immigrants.
The Cronbach’s alpha in this study was 0.87,
indicating that the scale was a reliable measure.
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