Development of an instrument to assess student attitudes toward educational process in an undergraduate core curriculum

• Main Author: Gibson, Tracy L
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2005
• Subjects: Curricula; Curriculum development; Higher education; Teaching
• ISBN: 9780542559952; 0542559951

This research was conducted to operationally define the construct of educational process, and assess the validity and reliability of an instrument measuring student attitudes toward the construct, educational process, for the integrated core curriculum, as implemented by Sam M. Walton College of Business (WCOB) at the University of Arkansas. The development of the instrument was based on The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering & Gameson, 1987). The instrument development was accomplished in three phases. The first phase involved the concept clarification and included identifying the attributes representing the construct under investigation through a thorough review of literature. Three subscales and 14 factors emerged. The second phase was the item development. A questionnaire with 88 items on a 1-to-5 Likert scale was developed. An expert panel critique confirmed the clarity and importance of the item statements, some of the items were revised, and 19 items were deleted based on suggestions of the panelists. The resulting instrument contained 69 items. The revised instrument was administered to 602 students enrolled in business core curriculum courses. There were 563 surveys submitted, 14 of the surveys were incomplete, resulting in 549 completed and usable surveys; a 91% return. For the final phase, statistical analysis, 10 items were removed based on high lows and means, and the item discrimination index. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using a principal-component analysis, (PCA) with a promax rotation revealed a factor structure similar to the proposed structure of this study. Of the originally defined 14 factors, 11 were retained in the final questionnaire. In two separate cases, two factors were combined. The remaining factors were retained. The final questionnaire consists of 11 factors, 52 survey items, and 8 demographic items. The instrument was found to be highly reliable; the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the instrument was (.94). Revisions and modifications were made to the instrument because of the data analysis conducted. Therefore, additional data collection, validity, and reliability tests should be conducted to ensure validation of the final survey instrument.