Determining the Levels of How Families Shape Children's Engagement with Science: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

This study aims to develop a scale that can be used to determine the levels of how families shape children's engagement with science. The study was conducted in the basic research design. The data collection was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, the data obtained from the scale, which was applied to 324 people, were subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In the second stage, data from 181 people were used for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). As a result of the EFA, it was found that the factor loads ranged from 0.521 to 0.893, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value was 0.866, the total variance explained was 62.254%, and the Cronbach's alpha value was 0.907. As a result of the CFA, however, it was found that the X2/Sd value was 2.08, and the RMSEA value was 0.077. According to the analysis results, a 5-point, 3-factor Likert type scale, consisting of 18 items, was obtained, with validity and reliability. The factors involved in the scale were called "Practical Applications (Activities and Experiments)", "Introduction to Science" and "Building Scientific Foundations". With the developed scale, it is believed that researchers in the field can determine the level of orientation of children of families with different demographics and children of different age groups to science.