Abstract
This study describes a psychometric evaluation of high school student responses to the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), and the subsequent development of a more parsimonious attitudes and beliefs survey structure for potential use with K-12 students in physics courses aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. Pre- and postsurvey response data were obtained from high school students in the 2017–2018 and 2018–2019 school years, whose instructors were partnered with the Physics through Evidence: Empowerment through Reasoning project. Exploratory factor analysis methods were used to propose a physics attitudes and beliefs survey with a more parsimonious factor structure, and confirmatory factor analysis methods provide support for the survey’s structural stability. These preliminary results suggest that the CLASS is fertile ground for the development of shorter attitudes and beliefs surveys that may be more easily implemented and interpreted by instructors in K-12 contexts. Replication analyses and potential uses of the more parsimonious survey structure are also discussed.
- Received 26 October 2020
- Revised 8 December 2021
- Accepted 7 February 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.010132
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society