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Research and Teaching: Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Attitudes toward Science and Technology

Journal of College Science Teaching—May/June 2009

Interest in science and technology is essential to good citizenship. By adapting items from other scales and writing new items, the authors developed the Attitudes Toward Science and Technology scale, containing 30 items. The norm group consisted of incoming freshman (N = 535) at a large four-year institution; a pilot study was conducted the previous year. Validity and reliability of the scale were examined using semantic analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, and factor analyses. The overall reliability was high (0.806), and five factors emerged: (1) interest in gaining science and technology knowledge, (2) concern that science and technology are dangerous to humankind, (3) science and technology are beneficial to humankind, (4) appropriateness of science and technology for females, and (5) males and females have equal opportunity in science and technology. This scale may be used for the 17–21 age group to determine their attitudes toward science and technology.
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