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Relevant CAT: Attitude Survey
Discipline: Chemistry
Description:
The Chemistry Attitudes and Experiences Questionnaire (CAEQ) is a 76-item instrument that asks students to rate their attitudes in three key areas:
- Attitudes towards chemistry (including their attitudes towards chemists, chemistry research, chemistry jobs, and science-focused films or websites). [22 questions]
- Chemistry self-efficacy (including their confidence in their ability to: explain chemistry, perform and analyzing data from a lab, ask meaningful questions, and understand chemistry use in the media) [19 questions]; and
- Assessment of their experiences in the “lecture” course, the recitation or discussion section, and the lab [35 questions].
The instrument was tested for construct validity using pre- and post-test data from two introductory chemistry courses (pre-test: n=332; post-test: n=337). ( “Construct validity” refers to the extent to which the instrument measures what it is intended to measure, namely the three areas indicated above.) The construct validity was measured by looking at two other validity measures: predictive validity (i.e., capability of instrument to predict what it should predict) and concurrent validity (i.e., capability of instrument to differentiate between two groups it should differentiate between). With regard to predictive validity, the authors presumed that positive learning experiences would correlate with positive student self-efficacy and attitude. In this regard, the authors found a modest, though statistically significant, correlation between student assessment of their learning experiences and their attitudes toward chemistry and self-efficacy. With regard to concurrent validity, the authors presumed that students who planned to enroll in a second chemistry course would have a higher level of self-efficacy and more positive attitudes than students who were not planning to do so. This was borne out in the results: students who planned to take an additional chemistry course scored, on average, higher in these areas that students who did not.
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Figure 1: Actual questions from the CAEQ
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Attitude toward chemistry
Please indicate what YOU think about the following:
Chemistry research
Helps people ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Harms people
Self-efficacy in chemistry
Please indicate how CONFIDENT you feel about:
After listening to a public lecture regarding some chemistry topic, explaining the main ideas to another person
Totally confident ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Not confident
Experiences in chemistry
Please answer questions about your LAB class:
The practical experiments were related to the lectures:
Strongly agree Agree Neither Disagree Strongly Disagree
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Tool:
Authors:
Coll, Richard K. (Department of Chemistry, University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Dalgety, Jacinta (Department of Chemistry, University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Salter, David (Department of Chemistry, University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Selected References:
Coll, R.K., Dalgety, J., & Salter, D. (2002). The development of a chemistry attitudes and experiences questionnaire (CAEQ). Chemistry Education Research and Practice in Europe Science Education,3(1). 19-32.
Azjen, I. (1989). Attitude structure and behaviour. In A.R. Pratkanis, S.J., Breckler & A.G. Greenwald (Eds.), Attitude structure and function (pp. 241-274). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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