Early Childhood Teachers' Attitudes toward Science Teaching: A Scale Validation Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a teacher-rating instrument, the Early Childhood Teachers' Attitude Toward Science Teaching. Based upon a pre-existing scale measuring elementary teachers' attitudes toward science teaching, the “Revised Science Attitude Scale ” (Thompson and Shrigley, 1986), 22 items were newly modified for the early childhood teachers. Reliability and validity of the scale were examined by using Cronbach Alpha and factor analyses respectively. According to the results of data analyses, reliability was high (.92), however, construct validity of the scale was not fully supported by the factor analyses. Through discussion about validity of the scale, four new subconstructs emerged: 'comfort-discomfort', 'managing hands-on science', 'classroom preparation', and 'developmental appropriateness.' Given these new subconstructs, newly revised items are provided for future validation studies.