Development and validation of the anthropogenic climate change dissenter inventory

Abstract

Individuals are exposed to misleading or outright false anthropogenic climate change (ACC) information. The goals of this study are to identify ACC dissenter messages, and to develop an instrument that quantifies the extent to which individuals agree with these messages. The instrument was developed using a sequential mixed methods design. A qualitative analysis of YouTube videos produced a bank of dissenter messages. A Likert-type survey was derived from these statements and completed by adults who reside in the United States of America (N = 133) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Parametric and non-parametric tests were used to explore the data, determine relations, and test the instrument’s validity and reliability. Dissenter statements factored into five unique categories. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (N = 151) was used to validate the instrument. Results suggest this instrument will be useful for understanding how different segments of the public, as measured by demographic variables, agree with misleading climate material.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• survey
• media
• environmental education

Acknowledgements

We thank the Mechanical Turk workers for participating in this study. Karen McNeal, Sheldon Turner, and Ramón Barthelemy served as external experts for face validation of the survey items. We thank Joe Lane for assistance with coding comparison. Laura Tinigin, Peggy McNeal and Elizabeth Eklund provided valuable feedback on drafts of this manuscript. Financial support for this study by provided by The George Mallinson Institute for Science Education at Western Michigan University.