Research Brief: The Validation of a Measurement Instrument: Teachers’ Attitutdes Toward the Use of Web Resources in the Classroom: Across Two Cultures Free

Powerful new technologies exist that can enhance instruction and learning, yet these new Web technologies are not being widely used by public school teachers (Wiburg, 1997). Teachers are not readily choosing to incorporate Web resources into their teaching even though they have been empirically shown to facilitate interactivity (Hardin & Ziebarth, 1995; Owston, 1997), increase mental activity (Conlon, 1997), and promote social interaction (Kagan & Widaman, 1987; Sharan & Kussell, 1984; Slavin, 1983) when used in the classroom. The plausibility of the argument that Web resources are not used in classrooms because Web technology is not available is quickly diminishing as Web technology initia tives explode (Becker, 1998). Why then, are teachers not using these resources in the classroom? A possible explanation may be related to the teacher's mental state of readiness to adopt this new innovation. This state of readiness is the teacher's attitude toward the use of the Web resources in the classroom.

Rogers (1995) suggested that the first step in adopting an innovation, such as Web technology, was to be exposed to information and developing knowledge about the innovation. Teachers only need watch television commercials to see many examples of school children communicating with other students around the world or participating in conversations with astronauts through Internet communication networks. Billboards, advertisements, magazines, and news articles are littered with references to Web addresses demonstrating the vast amount of resources accessible through Web technology. Teachers see technology invading their classrooms and attend in-service programs on use of Web resources for teaching. Thus, teachers are exposed to many illustrations of the use of Web resources for education. This exposure promotes the formation of various levels of knowledge about the value of Web resources to teaching and learning. According to Rogers (1995) this knowledge promotes the formation of attitudes toward the use of innovations, in this case the use of Web resources for classroom teaching and learning.

There is much value in having a measure of teachers’ attitudes toward the use of Web resources in the classroom. These data could be helpful in assessing teacher readiness to incorporate new resources into the classroom. They can also be used to inform the development of interventions designed to better inform teachers about the flexibility and value of different types of Web resources for the teaching and learning process. Yet, no instrument could be found that specifically measures teachers’ attitudes toward the use of Web resources in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to report on the development and factorial validity of an attitude instrument entitled Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Use of Web Resources in the Classroom.

Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) defined attitude as “a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related.” Zimbardo and Leippe (1991) more recently defined attitude as an evaluative disposition toward some object based on cognitions, affective reactions, behavioral intentions, and past behaviors. Attitude is an informed predisposition to respond and is comprised of three constructs: (1) cognitive—belief, (2) affective—feeling, and (3) behavioral—a readiness or intent for action (Zimbardo & Leippe, 1991).

Lawless & Smith (1997) defined the belief construct as a trust, confidence, or perception that something, such as Web resources, would provide benefits. For example, “effectively incorporating Web resources into lessons can enhance instruction” assesses the teacher's level of agreement that Web resources provide the benefit of enhanced instruction.

Feelings are defined as an emotional, affective, or internal response toward or away from something that is generally predicated on participatory experience (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Zimbardo & Leippe, 1991). Thus, being asked to indicate an opinion about Web resources by identifying with opposite terms such as “bad” and “good” invoke internal feelings about using Web resources, not tied to benefits but as an emotional response.

The third construct of attitude is behavioral or intent toward behavior. This construct is defined as a readiness or predisposition to act (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) such as the intent to use Web resources in the classroom. The three components together provide an overall measure of an individual's attitude.

The original attitude survey created consisted of 42-item stems, 21 positively stated and 21 negatively stated, written to represent the three constructs of attitude toward the use of Web resources in the classroom. The instrument was processed through a series of validation procedures. Two separate expert review phases were conducted by educational psychologists, educational technology specialists, advanced graduate students in education, and K-12 practicing teachers to determine face validity and content validity as well as readability of each item stem. The second review, with a new set of experts, focused on interpretation of item stems and clarity of item stem language. Resulting data were analyzed and used to revise the survey items.

The resulting 21-item stems included 13 positively and 8 negatively stated items: ten belief, ten feeling, and one behavioral. The resulting item stems were randomly grouped in two sections on the survey. In the first section, respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement for each item using a scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. In the second section, respondents were asked to indicate with which two semantically opposite terms they most closely identify with regard to using Web resources in the classroom. All items were rated on 5-point likert scales scoring –2 to 2 points. The total attitude score could range from –42 to 42. The more positive the score, the more positive the respondent's attitude toward the use of Web resources in the classroom.

A total of 154 K-12 teachers, 43 from the United States and 111 from the Catholic Education System in Thailand, responded to the 21 attitude items. The teachers represented a mix of K-12 grade levels and various levels of teaching and Web resources use experience. The teachers from the United States and Thailand were participants in a workshop presenting ideas on how to integrate NASA Web resources into their teaching.

The survey was translated into Thai for the teachers from Thailand. It was then translated back into English, by two different translators, to ensure that the meaning of the questions were consistently interpreted by both groups. All teachers completed the survey prior to attending workshops on how to integrate Web resources in the classroom.

A principal components analysis of item intercorrelation followed by a Varimax with Kaiser Normalization rotation was carried out to generate factors hypothesized to reflect attitude constructs.

A heterogeneous group of 43 K-12 teachers from various locations in the United States included: 11% K-4th grade, 42% 5th-8th grade, and 47% 9th-12th grade teachers. Sixteen percent reported having 2-5 years of teaching experience while the remaining 84% had more than 8 years of teaching experience. Twenty-three percent reported that they were novices or had never used the Internet, while 68% reported they had intermediate skills and the remaining 9% reported to be experts. (See Table 1.)

Of the 111 Thai teachers, 41% taught K-4th grades, 28% taught 5th-8th grades, and 24% taught 9th-12th grades. The remaining 7% indicated that they taught across the grade categories. In terms of teaching experience, 11% had taught less than 2 years, 17% between 2 and 5 years, 14% between 5 and 8 years, and 58% had taught more than 8 years. Fifty-six percent reported to be novices or never used the Web in school, 23% reported to have inter-mediate-level Internet skills, and 21% reported to be experts.

The survey items loaded to three factors consistent with the hypothesized constructs of attitude, namely cognitive, affective, and behavioral. One of the cognitive (belief) stems loaded with the affective (feelings) components, one of the affective stems loaded with the cognitive components, and another with the behavioral component. (See Table 2.)

The alpha internal consistency reliability score for all data collected was found to be .85. The alpha internal consistency reliability score for the nine factor-1 items, loading on the feelings construct, was .76. The ten factor-2 items, loading on the beliefs construct, had an alpha internal consistency reliability score of .65. The two factor-3 items, loading on the behavioral construct, had an alpha internal consistency reliability score of .61.

A post-hoc analysis was conducted to investigate data reliability for the two different samples of teachers. This resulted in an estimated alpha internal consistency score of .90 for the U.S. teachers and .65 for Thai teachers.

The Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Use of Web Resources in the Classroom instrument was administered to a heterogeneous mix of K-12 teachers. The factorial analysis demonstrated that the items loaded consistently with the theoretical constructs of attitude, such as, cognitive, affective, and behavioral. Further analysis of the overall internal reliability for the internal consistency of the item-stems revealed that the data collected with this instrument were highly reliable overall and for the U.S. teacher sample and moderately reliable for the Thai teachers.

These data provided insights into the structuring of the item-stems to measure attitude. However, further analysis is needed to investigate the interpreted meanings in the semantic differential item stems. Questions were raised during a final review of the survey as to whether the opposite-word pair questions were indeed using terms that were opposite in meaning. For example, were the teachers interpreting “efficient” and “time consuming” as truly opposite in meaning? More work is required to ensure the proper use of terminology in the semantic differential item stems.

Given the nature and number of resources available on the Web, there is also the possibility that the single question used to assess the behavior component of attitude was not robust enough to capture teacher intent and readiness to use Web resources. There are thousands of types of Web resources available to be used by teachers in a variety of ways. Intent to use one type of Web resources in multiple ways or several types of Web resources in the classroom may be lost using only one behavioral question, thus skewing the resulting attitude score. An equal number of behavioral stems need to be developed to match the number of cognitive and affective item stems. The additional behavioral item stems would provide a more complete measure of a teacher's intent to use Web resources in the classroom given the variety of Web resource available for use in the classroom.

Finally, the sample of teachers used for the initial testing of this survey was quite small. Once the instrument is revised based on the findings in this analysis, it should be administered to a much larger population of teachers and new validity and reliability measures calculated. It would also be prudent to more closely investigate the differences between the U.S. and Thai teachers to understand why the large difference in reliability measures between the two groups.

Given the rapid growth of Web resources available to teachers and students around the world, measuring attitudes toward the use of Web resources will be critical in establishing appropriate interventions that help teachers integrate these new resources into the classroom. Teachers’ intent to use these resources begins with their attitude toward using them in their classrooms. This instrument, Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Use of Web Resources in the Classroom, has been shown to have face, content, and construct validity and produce highly reliable data.

Although further enhancements are recommended for this instrument, data collected through this instrument can make a very important contribution to assessing the interventions used to help teachers in the process of integrating Web resources into their classroom lessons.

Acknowledgment: The author wishes to acknowledge Dr. Barbara Grabowski for her early reviews of the instrument and this manuscript and for administering the survey during a series of workshops in Thailand. The author also wishes to acknowledge Brother Anant Prichavudhi for arranging the Thai workshop and providing insights into the culture of Thai schools and attitudes toward technology for education.