Age - TOJET the Turkish online journal of educational technology

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET January 2005 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 4 Issue 1 ATTITUDES SCALE TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY The technology attitude scale prepared by Yavuz (2004) and analyzed by Morgil and Yucel (2004) was used in the study. A Likert type draft form consisting of 50 attitude statements was used to develop the scale and it was applied on 162 students. Factor analysis was done using the data gathered through this activity and a Likert type technology attitude scale was obtained, which consisted of 19 items in its final form and of which validity and dependability studies were made. The dependability coefficient of the scale is 0.867. GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS SCALE (GEAS) Within the scope of this study, the following activities were carried out to develop the “Global Environmental Awareness Scale” to measure global environmental awareness. The “Global Environmental Awareness Scale” related to global environmental awareness was developed by researchers. A total of 173 students were involved in the study while the scale was being developed. In order to develop a valid and dependable measurement tool to be used to measure the attitudes of students according to their knowledge on global environmental awareness, a draft form consisting of 20 statements of awareness was prepared first. The statements in the form are given below. 1. It is not important that chemistry education curricula create global environmental awareness. 2. It is very important to disseminate the environmental awareness developed in chemistry departments to the society in the global scale. 3. Creating the required financial resources for the dissemination of environmental awareness to the public at the global scale is not necessary. 4. Efficient educational methods on the environment at the global scale should be developed through cooperation in chemistry education. 5. Development of global environment awareness through chemistry education is unnecessary. 6. I believe that chemistry departments would make very important contributions to the creation of a clean environment. 7. Since environmental issues are not a local problem, chemistry educators would not make important contributions to global solutions. 8. The pollution’s surrounding us are a universal problem and a solution cannot be brought about with measures to be taken at the global scale. 9. Environmental problems at the global scale can be solved with the joint efforts of various environment organizations. 10. Global solutions can only be possible if the solution suggestions in various countries are shared with the whole world. 11. Since most education takes place at schools, environmental education cannot be solved through global environmental education policies. 12. Limitation of environmental pollutants can only be possible through global level joint sanctioning decisions. 13. From now on, the slogan for all years should be “Let’s create global environmental awareness”. 14. Looking for global solutions to environmental problems cannot be possible through interdisciplinary interaction. 15. More effective and enduring solutions to environmental problems can be found through global environmental investments. 16. Before looking for solutions to environmental problems, awareness should be created among people on what globalization is. 17. Attempts to find global solutions for environmental issues will not create significant benefits in the financial dimension. 18. I don’t think that it is sufficient that only a few countries in the world are concerned about environmental problems. 19. Global attempts to find solutions will also mobilize urban and country sides considerably. 20. Since attempts to find global solutions for environmental issues will make nations of the world more close to each other, it will also contribute to the creation of more sensitive individuals. When this form was being prepared, a group of students were asked to write compositions explaining their feelings and thoughts about global environmental awareness. Upon the examination of these texts, sentences that can be used as statements of awareness were selected and included in the draft form. These statements accepted to indicate behaviors about global environmental awareness were examined by measurement and evaluation experts, they were grammatically checked and the required corrections were made. Whether the students agreed or disagreed with the affirmative and negative statements of awareness was measured with the 5-level grading scale (Anderson, 1981). In order to test the structural validity, in other words to test whether it measures a single Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 2002 60
The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET January 2005 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 4 Issue 1 structure (concept), the “fundamental components” analysis, which is a factor analysis technique, was applied. Structural validity is related to what the measured feature is. (Kerlinger, 1973; Tabachnick and Fidel, 1989). Tabachnick and Fidel (2001) state that data from 200 subjects would be enough for factor analysis. However, there are also studies with the number of subjects varying between 100 and 150. Therefore, the number of individuals reached (N=173) have been accepted sufficient for factor analysis. In this study, the decision to include an item in the scale was based on the principle that the load value in the first factor would be 0.40 and more. The difference between the load value it takes in a factor needed to be 0.10 and more. On the data collected in the research study, first factor analysis and then item analysis were made in relation with the validity analysis of the scale. When the data for “Total Variance Explained” and “Commonalties” were examined, the differences between the load values of 4 items in 20 were found to be lower than 0.10 and one item had a factor load value below 0.40 and therefore they were taken out of the scale. The remaining items were analyzed a second time. A new analysis was done and it was observed that of the analyzed K=15 items (variables) were collected under 3 factors with self values greater than 1. The total variance explained by these three factors in relation to the scale is % 52.6. The common variances (communalities) of the three factors defined for the items ranged between 0.336 and 0.709. Accordingly, the three factors that came to the front as important factors in the analysis explain the majority of the total variance in the items as well as the variance of the scale (α=0,851). The number of important factors in the analysis was defined as three according to the self value measure. This is also apparently seen in Figure 1, which is plotted based on the self values. Eigenvalue 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 Factor Scree Plot 2 3 Factor Number 4 5 6 7 Figure 1. Graphic showing the number of factors versus self values In the graphic, a high accelerated drop is observed after the first factor. This indicates that the scale may have a general factor. On the other hand, although less, an accelerated drop is also observed in the graphic after the second and third factors, which leads to the idea that the scale can be three-factored. In the forth and consequent factors, the general trend of the graphic is horizontal and an important drop tendency is not observed. This means that the contributions of the third and consequent factors to the variance are close to each other. When the “Component Matrix” data are examined, it is seen that the first factor load values of all the 15 items are 0.443 and above. This finding indicates that the scale has a general factor. The fact that the variance caused by the first factor before the rotation is 33% is another evidence of the existence of a general factor. However, when the factor rotation results (Rotated Component Matrix), which also enable the defining of the three factors in terms of the items they contain, are examined, it is understood that items 9, 12, 10, 8, 14, and 15 higher results in the first factor, items 1, 2, 3, and 6 in the second factor and items 20, 16, 17, 4, and 7 in the third factor. Of the factor load values, the factor load value of item 18 is lower than 0.45. However, items 5, 11, 13 and 19 have relatively higher load values in all the three factors, but the difference between them is lower than 0.10. Having high load values in both factors, items 5, 11, 13 and 19 were excluded from the scale. 8 9 10 11 Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 2002 61 12 13 14 15
Page 1 and 2:
THE TURKISH ONLINE JOURNAL OF EDUCA
Page 3 and 4:
The Turkish Online Journal of Educa
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10: The Turkish Online Journal of Educa
Page 59: The Turkish Online Journal of Educa
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161:
show all

Age - TOJET the Turkish online journal of educational technology

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?