Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Physics Laboratory Attitude Level of University Students

N. İzzet Kurbanoglu and Ahmet Akin

Sakarya University, Turkey

The aim of this research is to develop a scale for measuring physics laboratory attitudes. Factor analytic evidence from a sample (n=503) of university physics students shows the Physics Laboratory Attitude Scale is a uni-dimensional scale. The amount of total variance explained by one factor was nearly 59%. Factor loadings of the items ranged from .70 to .91. For convergent validity the relationships between the physics laboratory attitudes and self-efficacy related to learning and performance was found as .21. The internal consistency reliability coefficient of the scale, using Cronbach alpha was .94. Overall findings demonstrated that this scale had high validity and reliability scores and that it may be used as an efficient instrument in order to assess attitude level of physics laboratory students. Keywords: Physics laboratory attitude, reliability, university students, validity.