Development and validation of scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development, and attitudes toward school

Abstract

This investigation examines the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to develop and validate scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes toward school for environmental education programs servicing middle school children. The scales represent outcomes commonly of interest to environmental education programs and also to after‐school and positive youth development activities. First, we developed the scales using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and then we used multi‐group longitudinal CFA to cross‐validate the model with data collected before participation in the environmental education program, immediately after the program, and three months later. The results support a three‐factor model, producing three scales that appear to be valid and reliable.

Keywords:

• scale development
• structural equation modeling
• measurement invariance
• environmental responsibility
• character development
• attitudes toward school
• environmental education

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff at NorthBay Adventure Center for their commitment to the evaluation program, their visiting students who participated in the surveys, and four anonymous reviewers whose comments improved this paper.