A Scale Development Study Regarding Middle School Students? Attitudes Towards Research in Visual Arts Courses

Abstract

This study aims to develop a scale for determining the attitudes of middle school students towards research in visual arts courses. The sample of the study is made up of 248 students randomly selected from among the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students receiving education in a middle school in Yenimahalle district of Ankara in the first semester of 2014-2015 school year. The items of the scale was determined by the researcher in accordance with the expert opinions and a literature review, and the draft scale with 27 items was designed. In order to test the construct validity of the scale, exploratory factor analyses were made through SPSS 20 software and the confirmatory factor analyses were made through LISREL software; as a result of these analyses, the scale was reduced to 19 items. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of the scale was found to be 0,902. As a result of the statistical analysis, the result of the Barlett Sphericity test was found to be significant (χ2=1809,695, df=171, p<.000). The exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale had a structure with four sub-factors. The statistical analyses showed the following results for the Attitude Scale: χ2=195,04; df= 146, p= 0.00, CFI=0,99, RMSEA= 0.037. The results of both RMSEA and CFI index were parallel to each other. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were considered as an indicator of the construct validity of the scale. As a last step, Cronbach alpha coefficient was calculated to prove the reliability of the scale and it was found to be 0,899.