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Abstract
Likert scales are useful in social science and attitude research projects. The General Self-Efficacy Exam is a test used to determine whether factors in educational settings affect participant's learning self-efficacy. The original instrument had 10 efficacy items and used a 4-point Likert scale. The Cronbach's alphas for the original test ranged from 0.76 to 0.90. A 5-item Likert scale was created from this instrument by first adding a "3 = neutral/undecided" option and also by adding five negatively-worded items to the instrument. The instrument was piloted with 20 participants. The Cronbach's alpha for this pilot study was 0.87. The instrument was subsequently used in a large research study, and the Cronbach's alpha was found to be 0.88. This yielded an instrument that showed strong internal consistency.
Introduction
Rating scales are commonly used in the social sciences and with attitude scores. Such instruments often use a Likert-type scale. A Likert-type scale "requires an individual to respond to a series of statements by indicating whether he or she strongly agrees (SA), agrees (A), is undecided (U), disagrees (D), or strongly disagrees (SD). Each response is assigned a point value, and an individual's score is determined by adding the point values of all of the statements" (Gay, Mills, & Airasian, 2009, pp. 15015 1). A Likert rating scale measurement can be a useful and reliable instrument for measuring self-efficacy (Maurer, 1998). This type of scale was developed by Rensis Likert (1931), who described and then developed this technique for the assessment of attitudes.
For this study, a modified Likert-type scale was used with the General Self-Efficacy Exam to measure if a certain teaching method could have an effect on the self-efficacy of adult learners in college science courses. This article describes how the Likert scale and the number of items for this existing instrument were modified for use in studies and how data were gathered to confirm the reliability of the modified instrument.
Likert-Type Scales
Likert scales provide a range of responses to a statement or series of statements. Usually, there are 5 categories of response ranging from 5 = strongly agree to 1 = strongly disagree with a 3 = neutral type of response (Jamieson, 2004). However, there is a debate among researchers concerning...