Gathering Psychometric Evidence for ASCIv2 to Support Cross-Cultural Attitudinal Studies for College Chemistry Programs

Abstract

Instruments in the affective domain may not be equivalent when the tests are administered to different populations with different cultural backgrounds. To illustrate a general approach this study was intended to gather psychometric evidence for an instrument of attitude to-ward chemistry to support cross-cultural attitudinal studies for col-lege chemistry students. The shortened version of Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory, ASCIv2, was used at three uni-versities, one in Saudi Arabia, one in Australia and one in the USA. Based on the results of psychometric analysis of internal consistency reliability and internal structure validity, we found that students from the Saudi Arabian institution responded to item 6, chemistry is challenging or not, differently from those in Australia and the USA. This study signifies the importance of examining utility and student response in context when instrument data is gathered in cross-cultural scenarios, to ensure that responses in the new context still match the trait underlying the instruments. In addition, this study contributes to the use of ASCIv2 regarding the possible variance and profile for attitude scores from multiple countries.