Design and validation of an instrument to evaluate attitudes toward formative research in university students

Abstract

<p>This article describes, in technical terms, the design and validation of a Likert-type scale instrument to evaluate attitudes toward formative research (AFR) in university students. The study was carried out at a public university in the Colombian Orinoquia. Before the development of 75 preliminary items, a literature review was carried out on the theoretical and methodological foundations involved in the study. Content was validated through expert judgment and a pilot test with 95 university students who were not part of the sample. To apply the final version, a sample of 310 undergraduate students was selected from different academic programs. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, a questionnaire was obtained with 26 items, which were grouped into five factors that explained 56% of the total variance, with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.827 for the questionnaire as a whole. It is concluded that the study provides a reliable, valid, and useful tool for assessing AFR in university students.</p>