Astronomy Attitude Scale: Development, Validity and Reliability

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable attitude scale to find out middle school students’ attitudes towards astronomy, subjects related to astronomy, the relationship between astronomy and daily life and also their attitudes towards the studies conducted. In the development stage of the scale, after existing attitude scales and studies on astronomy education were reviewed, initial items were prepared and expert views were consulted. Astronomy Attitude Scale (AAS), which was 5 point Likert, was conducted on a total of 302 middle school students studying in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. The scale was finalized through exploratory factor analysis and the scale’s Cronbach-Alpha consistency coefficient was found to be 0,912. As a result of the analyses conducted, it was found that the scale which consisted of a total of 27 items -17 positive and 10 negative- had five sub-factors and the factor load values of the items in these factors differed between 0.533 and 0.777. The study revealed that the factor structure of the scale included various sub dimensions related to astronomy education and the statistical analyses conducted showed that AAS was a valid and reliable test.