Development of Postgraduate Education Attitude Scale: (PEAS) Validity and Reliability Study

Abstract

The aim of this research is to develop “Postgraduate Education Attitude Scale (PEAS)” to be used for determining attitudes of master’s and doctoral students toward graduate education. The data were collected from 441 participants via an online survey tool. For content validity, opinions of four experts were elicited while exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed for construct validity of the scale. As a result of the analysis, a 21-item scale consisting of three factors named "valuing graduate education, prioritizing graduate education, resistance to graduate education" was obtained. The total variance explained by the three-factor structure is 61.209%. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was estimated for reliability analysis. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for the entire scale was found to be .94, and the reliability coefficients for the sub-dimensions were .91, .87, and .86, respectively. Item-total correlations and comparisons between upper and lower groups indicated that all items in the scale were discriminative. The correlation coefficients between the total scale score and the sub-dimensions ranged from 0.58 to 0.92, and a medium to high level positive relationship was found at α=0.01 significance level. Based on the obtained data, a valid and reliable measuring tool was developed to determine the attitudes of postgraduate students towards postgraduate education.