An Attitude Scale Towards Teacher Candidates’ Reading Habit: Reliability and Validity Analysis

As education level increase, the expectations related to reading habit also increase. Especially when teacher candidates reach the university level, they are expected to analyze what they read, evaluate and create new ways of thinking. Teacher candidates can also be seen as an important group whose reading habit should be developed. Consequently, measurement tools are needed to measure teacher candidates’ attitudes towards reading habit. The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale that can measure teacher candidates’ attitudes towards reading habit. Experimental process was employed in the study since convenient sampling was used in the scale development process in which 3rd year students (n=784) at the Education Faculty of Pamukkale University in 2011-2012 academic year were involved. In the development of the data gathering tool, the aim and the problem of the study was firstly identified, an item pool was created, the items developed were evaluated by experts in terms of content validity, a piloting of the items was conducted on the sample, and the scale was formed after reliability and construct validity analysis. The data gathered were also analyzed using rotated factor analysis and TCARHS (Teacher Candidates’ Attitudes towards Reading Habit Scale) containing 34 items was developed. The scale included three sub-dimensions. The factor coefficients of the items ranged from .80 to .54. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient was calculated as .95. As a result of the analysis, the scale was found to be a reliable measurement tool.

Keywords

Attitude, reading habit, scale development, teacher candidate.