Scale of environmental interest: The study of validity and reliability

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to share the statistics obtained in relation to validity and reliability of “Scale of Environmental Interest” and to introduce the scale into literature to be used in similar studies. After the piloting, the scale was administered to 613 students attending educational institutions of Kalecik province of the city of Ankara. The scale consisting of 27 items is in the form of five-point Likert type. The content and face validity of the scale was established by seeking the opinions of experts. Whether the data obtained from the scale are suitable for factor analysis was checked with Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) coefficient and Barlett Sphericity test and KMO coefficient was found to be 0.932 and significance for Barlett test was found to be =0.000 p<0.001, hence, it was concluded that the data are suitable for factor analysis. Explanatory factor analysis was employed to analyze the construct validity and factor structure of the scale, and basic constituents analysis was used as factorising technique. In the analyses, common factor variance of the factors on each variable, factor loadings of the items, the percentage of the variance explained and line chart were analyzed. Varimax basic constituents analysis was conducted to analyze the factor structures. The analysis revealed that there are 3 factors and the total variance explained by these 3 is 45.9%. The common variance of the 3 factors defined for the items was found to vary between 0.367 ile 0.601. Cronbach alpha coefficient of the scale was found to be α=0.93 and Spearman Brown split half test correlation was found to be 0.87. In light of these values, this scale is suggested to be used by researchers.

Keywords: Environmental education, scale of environmental interest, secondary education