A Scale for Children's Attitudes to Computers

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The development of a Likert-type scale for measuring children's attitudes to computers is described. Items sampled from six independently constructed scales were combined in a pilot scale which was administered to 59 secondary schoolgirls. Item analysis of the data justified retention of 20 of the original items. The final version of the scale was administered to 358 secondary 3 boys and girls, and was shown to discriminate effectively between boys and girls and between children who had and had not opted for computing courses for which they were eligible. The internal consistency (coefficient alpha) of the scale was 0.82. Additional evidence relating to the concurrent and construct validity of the scale is presented. In particular, the scale is shown to be sufficiently sensitive to record differing degrees of attitude change resulting from experimental manipulation of microcomputing experience.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: