A scale for measuring middle school students' attitudes toward programming

Abstract

Engineering education has been gaining a place in today's schools within the STEAM framework. Computing is an integral part of the STEAM framework. Affective variables related to computer programming might have an effect on the quality of STEAM education. The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure middle school students' attitudes toward programming. In the first phase of the study, exploratory factor analysis was conducted with data collected from a total of 508 middle school students. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a one-dimensional attitude scale. In the second phase of the study, confirmatory factor analysis was used on data obtained from 414 middle school students to examine factor structure. Analyses provided evidence for the factorial structure of the scale. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the scale was found to be .93. Then scale was administered to 65 middle school students who attended after-school coding clubs and who did not attend after-school coding clubs. It can be concluded that the scale is a reliable and valid scale for measuring middle school students' attitudes toward programming. Moreover, the scale was used to compare the students' scores according to their grades and gender. The findings were discussed.