Developing a scale to measure students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons

Developing a scale to measure students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons

• Cheung, Derek Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, Chinese University of Hong Kong

International Journal of Science Education, 31(16), 2185-2203, 2009

Routledge

2009

• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GD Science & Technology
    • GDA Teaching Objectives, Curriculum & Evaluation

Chemistry Students -- Attitudes Curriculum Evaluation Education -- Research Methodology Students -- Psychology Study & Teaching (Secondary) Hong Kong China

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Secondary Education

Students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in the Test of Science-Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690802189799]

• English

Journal Articles

• 09500693

• 10.1080/09500690802189799

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/0744d117

2010-11-28