Middle School Students' Attitudes Toward S-STEM: Evaluation of Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance

• In Event: Poster Session 4
  In Poster Session: Contemporary Topics in Engineering Education Research

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the hypothesized four-factor structure of Students’ Attitudes Toward Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S-STEM) in an urban middle school sample (N=1109) and test measurement invariance (equivalence) of the instrument across gender and race/ethnicity. Confirmatory factory analysis results indicated that a modified five-factor model fits the data better than the proposed four-factor model. The results also indicated that the five-factor model is invariant across gender. Moreover, the five-factor structure is somewhat invariant across racial/ethnic groups. This suggests that S-STEM is a valuable tool for investigating and comparing the correlates of attitudes towards STEM across diverse samples

Authors

• Wondimu Ahmed, The University of Akron

• Kristin L.K. Koskey, The University of Akron

• Nidaa Makki, The University of Akron

• Nicholas G Garafolo, University of Akron

• Donald P Visco, The University of Akron