Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Robert L. Williams

Committee Members

Donald J. Dickinson, Charles L. Thompson

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop a brief instrument to assess middle school students’ perceptions of the relationship between school-related activities and success in adulthood. The research was part of a larger study to measure work ethics of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade children. One thousand two hundred thirty nine students responded “yes” or “no” to school-valuing questions embedded in a larger Middle School Survey, which also included a measure of social desirability (SD). The students were from three public schools: School 1 was in a northeastern suburb (n=341) and the other two were in a southeastern city of the United States. School 2 was in an urban area (n=254) and School 3 was in a suburban neighborhood (n=644) within the same metropolitan area. Teachers were asked to rate all students on academic performance as “poor,” “average,” or “outstanding,” and to rate on a 5-point scale 20 work habits of two students deemed to have the best and two judged to have the poorest work habits in each class. These teacher ratings were used in assessing the validity of the School Valuing (SV) scale. The school-valuing scores were also compared across demographic groups based on gender, grade level, and ethnicity.

The average SV score for the total sample was 8.72, which is near the upper end of the 0 to 12 scale. Girls obtained a significantly higher mean than did boys, but grade level differences were not significant. For the three ethnic groups having large enough ns to justify statistical comparisons, Caucasians scored significantly higher than both African Americans and Hispanics, who did not differ significantly.

An item-analysis using both classical item statistics and item response theory showed that the items were moderately related to the total SV scores. Positively worded items were more likely to yield responses consistent with school valuing than were the negatively worded items. A test of internal consistency showed that the SV scale was acceptably reliable (.74), with all items contributing similarly to the internal consistency of the scale. Both criterion-related and construct-related validity of the SV were assessed. To provide data for assessing criterion-related validity, teachers were asked to rate students on academic performance and work habits. Concurrent and known groups validity assessment showed evidence of criterion-related validity. Construct-related validity was assessed via a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. This analysis indicated that the instrument is best represented as a two-factor scale, one factor composed of positive items and the other of negative items.

Some differences in trends were noted across schools. School I’s SV scores were lowest in its 7th graders, whereas school 2’s 7th graders obtained the highest SV score and school 3’s SV scores were equivalent across the grades. School 2 had the lowest SV mean of the schools, the lowest internal consistency score on the SV scale, and the highest mean on the SD scale. These findings suggest that more students at this school (an urban school whose population was predominantly African American) failed to recognize the relevance of school, that they either did not take the survey seriously or may have misunderstood some of the items, and that they may have answered the statement in a manner they thought was socially desirable. At School 2, where ethnic groups were represented by similar socioeconomic backgrounds, African American students scored higher on the SV scale than Caucasians. School 3, a suburban school, yielded the highest internal consistency on the SV scale, the highest mean on the SV scale, and the lowest SD mean of any school.

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