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Developing a Scale to Measure

Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry
Lessons
a
Derek Cheung
a
The Chinese University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong
Published online: 26 Oct 2009.

To cite this article: Derek Cheung (2009) Developing a Scale to Measure Students’ Attitudes
toward Chemistry Lessons, International Journal of Science Education, 31:16, 2185-2203, DOI:
10.1080/09500690802189799

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 International Journal of Science Education
Vol. 31, No. 16, 1 November 2009, pp. 2185–2203

RESEARCH REPORT

Developing a Scale to Measure

Students’ Attitudes toward
Chemistry Lessons
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Derek Cheung*
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
[email protected]
00
Prof.
000002008
DerekCheung
International
10.1080/09500690802189799
TSED_A_319146.sgm
0950-0693
Original
Taylor
2008 and
& Article
Francis
(print)/1464-5289
Francis
Journal of Science
(online)
Education

Students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curri-
culum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evalu-
ate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and
of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of
students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in
the Test of Science-Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude
Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a
theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry
laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn
chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version
of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated
that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.

Introduction
There is considerable agreement among science educators on the importance of
students’ attitudes toward science lessons in school (Osborne, Simon, & Collins,
2003). However, there is much less agreement about how to measure them. In Hong
Kong, secondary school chemistry teachers are encouraged to collect their students’
attitudes toward chemistry lessons as part of the information for curriculum evalua-
tion. Unfortunately, an extensive review of the literature on attitude research indi-
cated that there are no instruments that can provide valid and reliable data on
students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons.

*Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Ho Tim Building, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/09/162185–19

© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09500690802189799
 2186 D. Cheung

A variety of instruments have been developed by science educators to measure

student attitudes (e.g., Bennett, Rollnick, Green, & White, 2001; Jenkins & Nelson,
2005; Pell & Jarvis, 2001). Among those instruments receiving considerable atten-
tion is the Test of Science-Related Attitudes (TOSRA) developed by Fraser (1978).
Initially, Fraser developed five scales. He later extended the instrument to form a
70-item test in a five-point Likert-type format. There are seven scales in the current
version of the TOSRA (Fraser, 1981), with 10 items per scale. The seven scales are
called Social Implications of Science, Normality of Scientists, Attitude to Scientific
Inquiry, Adoption of Scientific Attitudes, Enjoyment of Science Lessons, Leisure
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Interest in Science, and Career Interest in Science. The TOSRA has been widely
used in science education research (e.g., Joyce & Farenga, 1999; Lang, Wong, &
Fraser, 2005; Smist, Archambault, & Owen, 1994; White & Richardson, 1993).
Student attitudes are important dependent variables in the evaluation of science
curricula (Bennett, Lubben, & Hogarth, 2007; Fraser, 1979; Gardner, 1975a).
According to Fraser (1977), selection of attitude scales for curriculum evaluation
should consider three criteria: educational importance, multidimensionality, and
economy of time for administration. However, the multidimensionality of the
TOSRA items has not been confirmed by empirical research. For example, Schibeci
and McGaw (1981) administered the TOSRA to 1,041 Australian students in
Grades 8–10. Confirmatory factor analysis of student responses to the 70 items indi-
cated that the student data did not fit the seven TOSRA scales. Khalili (1987)
surveyed 336 American students in Grades 11 and 12, and reported that the seven
TOSRA scales were highly reliable, but the results of the principal component factor
analysis did not support the distinctiveness of the seven scales. Smist et al. (1994)
administered the TOSRA to 572 American high school students. They tested the
multidimensionality of student data with exploratory factor analysis but failed to find
seven distinctive factors among the 70 items.
Tapia and Marsh emphasised that ‘Attitude scales must withstand factor analysis,
tap important dimensions of attitudes, and require a minimum amount of time for
administration’ (2004, p. 17). Also, researchers such as Breckler (1984), Krosnick,
Judd, and Wittenbrink (2005), and Munby (1997) have emphasised the importance
of a confirmatory approach to testing the construct validity of attitudinal data, which
can be accomplished with confirmatory factor analysis (Byrne, 1998). A systematic
examination of the construct validity of attitudinal data is most critical because
construct validity subsumes content relevance, content representativeness, and crite-
rion-relatedness, and is the evidential basis of interpretation of data as well as the use
of data (Messick, 1989). Unfortunately, most science educators have used an
exploratory approach rather than a confirmatory approach to validation in their atti-
tude studies (see, e.g., Berg, 2005; Dalgety, Coll, & Jones, 2003; Kind, Jones, &
Barmby, 2007; Orion & Hofstein, 1991; Parkinson, Hendley, Tanner, & Stables,
1998; Salta & Tzougraki, 2004). In fact, the validity of many attitude instruments is
so notorious that science researchers do not trust the quantitative data generated by
these instruments (see, e.g., Henderleiter & Pringle, 1999). Therefore, a need to
look at this area of science education research is very pressing.
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2187

Additionally, researchers such as Ramsden (1998) and Gardner (1975a, b)

pointed out that many attitude scales developed or used in past studies lacked a
theoretical framework (e.g., Adesoji & Raimi, 2004; Bennett et al., 2001; Dhindsa &
Chung, 1999; Parkinson et al., 1998). This is critically important because, according
to psychologists, attitude is an internal state and thus is not directly observable; the
existence of an attitude can only be inferred from observable attitudinal responses.
Since attitude is a multidimensional construct, science education researchers should
develop their attitude scales based on an a priori model with clearly defined dimen-
sions. But a lot of attitude instruments used by science educators contained items
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that were not indicative of attitude (Bennett et al., 2007). If an attitude scale
contains an ill-defined hodge-podge of different items, and student responses are
summarised as an average of these items, then we do not know what is being
measured. About 10 years ago, Ramsden already made the following recommenda-
tions for improving attitude research in science education:
Firstly, the different dimensions, or constructs, of attitude need to be carefully defined
and separated out, and secondly, there may be a need to consult appropriate psycholog-
ical theory on attitude development if an intention is to use the findings to inform teach-
ing or curriculum planning. (1998, p. 129)

Furthermore, Mayer and Richmond (1982) noted that an extensive duplication of

effort had occurred in the development of attitude instruments in science education.
They recommended that efforts should be directed toward the revision or refine-
ment of existing instruments.
In short, researchers (Breckler, 1984; Gardner, 1975a, b; Krosnick et al., 2005;
Mayer & Richmond, 1982; Munby, 1997; Ramsden, 1998) have criticised attitude
research in science education in three respects: many past studies were conducted
without a theoretical framework; the multidimensionality of attitudinal data has
seldom been tested by a confirmatory approach; and an extensive duplication of
effort has occurred in the development of attitude instruments. In this paper,
I report how I modified the Enjoyment of Science Lessons scale in Fraser’s (1981)
TOSRA to form an Attitude toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS) for Hong
Kong teachers to conduct curriculum evaluation. Although the TOSRA and
ATCLS were designed for different purposes, this paper demonstrates how an exist-
ing attitude scale can be modified properly.

Theoretical Framework for Developing the ATCLS

Social psychologists have proposed three major theoretical viewpoints about the
essential nature of attitudes: the tri-component viewpoint, the separate entities
viewpoint, and the latent process viewpoint (Oskamp & Schultz, 2005). The tri-
component viewpoint holds that an attitude is a single entity with three components:
affect, behaviour, and cognition. The affective component refers to the feelings and
emotions one has toward an attitude object such as chemistry lessons and chemical
industry. The behavioural component refers to one’s overt actions and responses to
 2188 D. Cheung

the attitude object. The cognitive component is the beliefs that one holds about the
attitude object. The tri-component viewpoint of attitude was popular in the 1960s,
but its weaknesses have been identified by researchers. For example, research has
indicated that some individuals base their attitudes predominantly on their feelings,
whereas others base their attitudes mainly on beliefs (Huskinson & Haddock, 2004).
The second theoretical viewpoint about the nature of attitudes assumes that the
three components mentioned above are distinct, separate entities. The term ‘attitude’
is reserved for the affective component only. Cognition and behaviour are treated as
determinants rather than constituents of an attitude. This viewpoint has been advo-
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cated by researchers such as Thurstone (1931), Bem (1970), and Fishbein and Aizen
(1975). They have conceptualised attitude as the amount of affect for or against an
object. However, some researchers (e.g., Oskamp & Schultz, 2005; Zanna & Rempel,
1988) doubt this simple theoretical conceptualisation of attitudes. Fishbein and
Aizen (1975) themselves also admitted that this viewpoint does not capture the full
complexity of the attitude concept.
The third theoretical viewpoint conceptualises attitudes as a latent variable that
can help to explain the relationship between certain observable stimulus events and
behaviours. Contemporary attitude researchers generally agree that attitudes can be
formed from cognitive, affective, and/or behavioural information about the attitude
objects and expressed through cognitive, affective, and/or behavioural responses
(Eagly & Chaiken, 2005; Fabrigar, MacDonald, & Wegener, 2005; Oskamp &
Schultz, 2005). They postulate that the stimulus events will trigger some latent
cognitive, affective, or behavioural processes within the individual, and an attitude is
a general evaluative summary of the information derived from these hidden
processes. As an internal state, attitude is not directly observable; its existence can
only be inferred from observable responses. Although the observable responses may
be shown as cognitive, affective, or behavioural responses, not all attitudes can
produce the three types of responses. In other words, the responses generated by an
attitude can be unidimensional or multidimensional. Affective responses may be
measured by collecting self-reports of feelings. Cognitive responses may be collected
through written or verbal statements of beliefs about the attitude object. Behavioural
responses include overt actions and self-report of behavioural intentions concerning
an attitude object. Thus, attitudes can have varied antecedents on the input side and
varied responses on the output side. According to Oskamp and Schultz (2005), the
latent process viewpoint is better than the tri-component viewpoint or the separate
entities viewpoint because it is more consistent with findings of contemporary atti-
tude research. In the present study, I used Oskamp and Schultz’s (2005) definition
of attitude (i.e., an attitude is a predisposition to respond in a favourable or unfavour-
able manner with respect to a given attitude object) and measured student attitudes
toward chemistry lessons based on the latent process viewpoint (see Figure 1).
According to Gardner (1975a), attitudes in science education can be divided into
Figure 1. Latent process viewpoint

two broad categories: attitudes toward science (e.g., attitude toward social responsi-
bility in science), and scientific attitudes (e.g., open-mindedness). The first category
of attitudes must involve some attitude objects whereas the second category refers to
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2189

OBSERVABLE LATENT LATENT SELF-REPORTED

STIMULUS PROCESSES VARIABLE ATTITUDINAL RESPONSES

Liking for chemistry theory

lessons

Cognitive Liking for chemistry lab

processes Attitude work
Chemistry toward
lessons in chemistry
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Affective
school processes lessons in
school Evaluative beliefs about
Behavioral school chemistry
processes

Behavioural tendencies to
learn chemistry

Figure 1. Latent process viewpoint

the qualities possessed by scientists. The present study belongs to the first category
of attitudes, and the attitude object is ‘chemistry lessons’ rather than such objects as
chemists. The term ‘lessons’ refers to theory classes and laboratory classes in
secondary school. I included a total of four dimensions in my theoretical model
(Figure 1) to serve as bases to guide the construction of the ATCLS items. The
rationale for inclusion of these dimensions is summarised below.

Dimension 1: Liking for chemistry theory lessons

This dimension must be included in any measures of attitude toward a school
subject because psychologists have reached a consensus that people have attitudes
when they love or hate things and when they approve or disapprove of them (Eagly
& Chaiken, 1998). Bem (1970) simply defined attitudes as likes and dislikes. Many
science educators had included this dimension when they measured students’ atti-
tudes toward science lessons. For example, Parkinson et al. (1998) conducted an
exploratory factor analysis and found that nine of their attitude items formed a factor
labelled as enjoyment, which accounted for the greatest percentage of variance of the
variables. Items used by Parkinson et al. included ‘I think science is interesting’ and
‘Science is my favourite subject’. Actually, seven of the 10 items in the Enjoyment of
Science Lessons scale in the TOSRA measure students’ affective responses (see
Table 1). In Hong Kong, secondary school chemistry students express their likes
and dislikes in many ways. Since a large amount of time is spent on teaching and
learning of concepts and theories in the Hong Kong chemistry curriculum, this
dimension of attitudinal responses focuses on the feelings and emotions a student
has toward the chemistry theory lessons implemented in school. For example, we
 2190 D. Cheung

Table 1. Fraser’s (1981) items measuring enjoyment of science lessons

Science lessons are fun.

I dislike science lessons.
Science lessons bore me.
Science is one of the most interesting school subjects.
I really enjoy going to science lessons.
The material covered in science lessons is uninteresting.
I would enjoy school more if there were no science lessons.
School should have more science lessons each week.
Science lessons are a waste of time.
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I look forward to science lessons.

may infer that students have a positive attitude to chemistry theory lessons if they
like the lessons and agree that the lessons are interesting.

Dimension 2: Liking for chemistry laboratory work

Laboratory work is a key component of school science, and research has indicated
that the majority of science students like doing laboratory work in science lessons.
Although most science researchers (e.g., Dhindsa & Chung, 1999; Murphy,
Ambusaidi, & Beggs, 2006; Murphy & Beggs, 2003; Parkinson et al., 1998) included
items on this dimension in their attitude instruments, none of the 10 items in the
Enjoyment of Science Lessons scale in the TOSRA measure students’ affective
responses to laboratory work implemented in secondary school (see Table 1). An atti-
tude study by Parkinson et al. revealed that ‘The most common feature that attracted
them [students] to science was the amount of practical work involved. Chemistry
practical work received the largest number of favourable comments’ (1998, p. 172).
Therefore, this dimension should be included in any measures of attitude toward
chemistry lessons and focuses on students’ feelings of liking or disliking for chemistry
laboratory work. In Brunei, for example, Dhindsa and Chung (1999) included four
items in their attitude instrument to measure students’ enjoyment of chemistry labo-
ratory work: ‘I enjoy doing chemistry practical’, ‘It is interesting doing chemistry
experiments’, ‘I hate doing chemistry practical’, and ‘Chemistry laboratory is dull and
boring’.

Dimension 3: Evaluative beliefs about school chemistry

Many science researchers have emphasised the affective aspects of an attitude
construct. However, this is not enough because psychologists have also reached a
consensus on the evaluative aspect of the attitude concept. For example, Petty,
Wegener, and Fabrigar (1997) have stressed that although psychologists have
defined attitudes in a variety of ways, at the core is the notion of evaluation. Further-
more, beliefs are a basic building block of attitudes (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). A
student’s attitude to chemistry lessons can be inferred from his or her cognitive
responses; that is, the evaluative beliefs the student has about the importance or
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2191

usefulness of chemistry lessons in secondary school. As explained by Oskamp and

Schultz (2005), evaluative beliefs are beliefs that state a value judgement about an
attitude object. Examples of attitude items used by science educators to measure the
importance or usefulness of chemistry lessons are ‘Chemistry is a very worthwhile
and necessary subject’ (Dhindsa & Chung, 1999), ‘Chemistry knowledge is useful to
interpret many aspects of our everyday life’ (Salta & Tzougraki, 2004), ‘Every high
school graduate needs some knowledge of chemistry’, and ‘Chemistry is an essential
prerequisite to the study of other natural sciences’ (Hofstein, Ben-Zvi, Samuel, &
Tamir, 1977). Menis (1983) also included importance of chemistry as a dimension
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of the attitude construct when he surveyed high school students in Israel. Two of the
10 items (Table 1) in the Enjoyment of Science Lessons scale in the TOSRA
measure students’ evaluative beliefs about science lessons: ‘School should have more
science lessons each week’ and ‘Science lessons are a waste of time’.

Dimension 4: Behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry

In addition to affect and cognition, attitudinal responses can be behavioural in
nature (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Oskamp & Schultz, 2005). It is important to note
that an attitude is not behaviour; rather, it is an action tendency to respond in a
particular way to the attitude object (Eagly & Chaiken, 2005). In the present study,
behavioural responses were defined as expressions of what students say they would
intend to do in a chemistry class, and students may be invited to react to hypotheti-
cal situations. For example, we may infer that students have a positive attitude
toward chemistry lessons in school if they are willing to spend more time reading
chemistry books. Only one of the 10 items (Table 1) in the Enjoyment of Science
Lessons scale in the TOSRA can be classified as behavioural tendency: ‘I look
forward to science lessons’. Examples of items used by other science educators are
‘I plan to take as much chemistry as I probably can during my education’, ‘I would
like to further my study in chemistry’ (Dhindsa & Chung, 1999), ‘I would like to
become a chemist when I finish school’, and ‘I would like to have fewer chemistry
lessons’ (Salta & Tzougraki, 2004).

Methodology
Collection of Information to develop the ATCLS
Two types of instruments have been commonly used in attitude research in
science education: semantic differential scales (e.g., Nyberg & Clarke, 1983; Reid &
Skryabina, 2002), and Likert scales (e.g., Dhindsa & Chung, 1999; Jenkins & Nelson,
2005; Menis, 1983; Pell & Jarvis, 2001). Schibeci (1982) suggested that high school
students’ general attitudes to science can be measured with the semantic differential
technique; but if more specific attitudes are to be measured, Likert scales are more
appropriate. Simpson and Oliver (1990) also found that Likert-type items had
produced the highest reliability when several formats were tested. Therefore, I decided
 2192 D. Cheung

to keep the Likert-type format used by Fraser (1981) when I modified his Enjoyment
of Science Lessons scale.
In Hong Kong, secondary schooling consists of seven years (Secondary 1–7),
and academic year in secondary schools begins in September. Chemistry is offered
as a separate discipline to Secondary 4–7 students (aged about 16–19 years). To
begin the process of developing a scale to measure students’ attitudes toward
chemistry lessons implemented in secondary school, I started with semi-structured
interviews with 10 Secondary 4–7 students randomly selected from 10 chemistry
classes in two secondary schools in Hong Kong. The purpose of the interviews was
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to solicit student input (Koballa & Glynn, 2007) so that an item pool was gener-
ated on the basis of views expressed by chemistry students. The interviews were
conducted in October 2005. The students were interviewed individually right after
school for about 15 minutes and asked to respond to the following three open-
ended questions:
(1) When compared with other subjects that you have studied in this school, do you
like chemistry lessons? Why?
(2) Do you believe that chemistry is an important subject in the school curriculum?
Why?
(3) Do you intend to learn more chemistry? Why?
Semi-structured interviews were used to allow me to ask students to clarify their
ideas and to pose follow-up questions. The interviews were conducted in Chinese
and audio-taped. The interview data were transcribed in full and were content-
analysed and categorised into the four dimensions conceptualised in the present
study.
In addition to interviews, an extensive review of the literature on students’ atti-
tudes toward school chemistry or science was also conducted to identify instruments
used in past studies. Items that had previously been used to measure students’ atti-
tudes and were consistent with at least one of the four dimensions in my theoretical
framework were selected for examination (e.g., Dhindsa & Chung, 1999; Fraser,
1981; Hofstein, Ben-Zvi, & Samuel, 1976). The information collected from the
literature review and student interviews was synthesised and used to construct items
for the four dimensions.

Trial Version of the ATCLS

To encourage Hong Kong teachers to conduct curriculum evaluation regularly,
I aimed to develop a short attitude scale that is economical in time for students to
respond to. Based on the four dimensions, a trial version of the ATCLS was devel-
oped by selecting 20 items. The 20 items were written in Chinese, and special atten-
tion was paid to those guidelines provided by researchers (e.g., Hassan & Shrigley,
1984; Oppenheim, 1992). Two science educators were invited to determine the
content validity by classifying the 20 items to the four dimensions. A combination of
positively and negatively worded items was often used by attitude researchers to
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2193

reduce the effects of acquiescence and other response biases. However, research has
indicated that negative items, written as reversals of positive items, may load on a
separate factor, forming a measurement artefact (Miller & Cleary, 1993; Pilotte &
Gable, 1990; Schmitt & Stults, 1985). Therefore, negatively worded items were not
included in the ATCLS.
The trial version of ATCLS was pilot tested on a convenience sample of 777
Secondary 4–7 chemistry students in December 2005, close to the middle of the
academic year in Hong Kong. The 20 items were randomly distributed in the
ATCLS. Students responded to the items on a seven-point rating scale with labels
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strongly disagree, moderately disagree, slightly disagree, not sure, slightly agree, moderately
agree, and strongly agree. A study by Alwin and Krosnick (1991) found that fully
labelled seven-point attitude scales can generate the most reliable data. The goal of
the pilot study was to conduct an item analysis to eliminate any ambiguous or non-
discriminating items. Student responses to the 20 items were first coded on a scale of
one to seven. Using the SPSS program, the reliabilities of student responses to indi-
vidual items and to the four subscales were then examined on the basis of item–total
correlations and Cronbach alpha values, respectively. Additionally, five chemistry
students were invited to respond verbally to the items. They were asked to identify
any ambiguous items and underline those words lacking clarity. These students
found that the items were readable and unambiguous.

Final Version of the ATCLS

For each of the four dimensions, only those three items with the largest item–total
correlations were retained in the final version of ATCLS in order to develop a short
scale. Three items were selected because a basic principle in confirmatory factor
analysis is that at least three indicators are needed to define a factor adequately
(Bollen, 1989).
To avoid any bias, a different sample of students was selected to generate data for
examining the construct validity of data collected by the final version of ATCLS.
The 12-item ATCLS was administered to 954 Secondary 4–7 chemistry students in
December 2006. The convenience sample was drawn from six secondary schools,
and none of them had been previously involved in the pilot study. The students were
of a wide spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds and had a large diversity in intel-
lectual ability. No claim is made that the student data represented the whole chemis-
try student population in Hong Kong, but the sample was large enough to examine
the construct validity of data by confirmatory factor analysis. The numbers of
students responding at Secondary 4, 5, 6, and 7 were 278, 269, 258 and 148,
respectively. Seventy-two per cent of the students were male.
Like the pilot study, the reliability of student data collected by the 12-item ATCLS
was examined on the basis of item–total correlation and Cronbach’s alpha. To test
the construct validity of student data, the 12 items were subjected to confirmatory
factor analysis. Each item was allowed to load on only one factor (i.e., the dimension
of the attitudinal responses that the item had been constructed to measure), and the
 2194 D. Cheung

errors of measurement associated with all items were posited to be uncorrelated. The
confirmatory factor analysis was performed by the LISREL program using maximum
likelihood estimates derived from a covariance matrix based on listwise deletion for
missing data (Byrne, 1998). The ability of the hypothesised four-dimension model
to fit student data was judged by the values of overall model fit indices such as the
goodness of fit index and comparative fit index.

Results and Discussion

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Student Interviews
The data from the student interviews indicated that traditional instruction—lots of
teacher talk and practice in solving sample problems at the board—was popular in
most of the Secondary 4–7 classes. Seven of the 10 students interviewed mentioned
that they did not like chemistry lessons. Much of the dissatisfaction arose because
they felt that their teachers had relied on rote-learning in chemistry classrooms. This
feeling was reinforced if their teachers seldom organised laboratory work to facilitate
them to learn chemistry. Few of the students had first-hand experience of conduct-
ing their own scientific investigations. They reported that their teachers drilled them
in preparation for public examinations. The following excerpts demonstrate what
made students dislike chemistry lessons.
I hate chemistry. We have four chemistry periods per week. But they are all boring stuff
… Chalk-and-talk … We have had few opportunities to carry out experiments in the
lab. (Student 1, male, Secondary 4, School A)
My chemistry teacher seldom asks questions in class. We are afraid to speak up because
my teacher may scold us for raising silly questions. Chemistry lessons are much more
boring than biology lessons. (Student 2, female, Secondary 4, School A)
I don’t like chemistry. My teacher just gives notes. She expects us to memorise every-
thing … I don’t understand why the mole concept is so important to chemists. We have
started to do past exam papers. (Student 6, male, Secondary 4, School B)
We perform laboratory work every week because we have school-based assessment of
practical skills as a component of the public exam. Practical marks are submitted to the
Exam Authority. But very often the chemistry experiments are not related to the topic
we are learning. (Student 4, male, Secondary 6, School A)

Proper use of teaching aids can help students to learn chemistry by making the
concepts more visual and memorable. However, only three of the 10 students talked
about how their chemistry teachers motivated them to learn using a variety of teach-
ing aids and learning activities. These three students also felt very positive about
scientific inquiry.
Chemistry is one of my favourite subjects. I like doing chemistry experiments. Last year,
we were asked to compare the effectiveness of three different brands of toothpaste—
Crest, Colgate, and Salz. It’s a group project. We were required to design the proce-
dures by ourselves. Sometimes, we didn’t know what steps to take next. It was a chal-
lenge because it was harder than following a given procedure. I think that’s a very good
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2195

opportunity for me to apply what I had learned acid-base chemistry. (Student 8, female,
Secondary 5, School B)
Sometimes, chemistry lessons were interesting. We sang an exciting song about
Mendeleev when we learned about the periodic table … I liked watching demonstration
experiments. My teacher added potassium to water. We all saw the beautiful lilac flame.
My teacher also showed us a video. I forgot the name of that metal but my teacher told
us that it is more reactive than potassium. The video showed that the vigorous reaction
broke the trough. It’s really wonderful. (Student 7, female, Secondary 4, School B)
A few weeks ago, we completed a project in organic chemistry. We had to determine
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the amount of ethanol in a bottle of red wine. I had fun designing the experiment. And,
I learned that there is often more than one way to solve a chemistry problem. (Student
10, male, Secondary 7, School B)

One of the tensions about the school chemistry curriculum is the extent to which
its contents should be relevant to student interests and the modern world. Five of
the 10 students interviewed believed that chemistry is an important subject in the
school curriculum if the contents are related to their daily lives. In other words, the
learning of chemistry should be personally meaningful to them. Two students also
thought that chemistry lessons are important if they want to pursue science-related
degree programmes at university.
Chemistry is useful if the topics are connected with our daily life. I remember that my
teacher explained why the pH of Coca-Cola is about 3 last year. I didn’t know that
Coca-Cola contains an acid called phosphoric acid which can reduce the amount
of calcium ions in our blood. But Sprite and 7-Up do not contain phosphoric acid. Now
I don’t drink Coca-Cola. (Student 3, female, Secondary 5, School A)
I think some chemistry concepts are useful for people to solve everyday problems. For
example, my teacher told us that in the 1960s, thousands of babies were born without
arms and legs in Europe. It’s due to a drug called Thalidomide. Now pharmacists
understand that Thalidomide is a chiral drug. One of the enantiomers has serious side-
effects. So, we should understand chemistry because it affects human lives. (Student
5, female, Secondary 7, School A)
I would like to study medicine when I leave school. Chemistry is one of the most impor-
tant subjects for me to study in school. I hope I’d get a grade A in the public exam.
(Student 9, male, Secondary 6, School B)

Only two of the 10 students showed behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry

in senior grades or at university. Five of the students indicated that it is difficult to
get a chemistry-related job in Hong Kong. These five students also thought that
chemistry is not required for entry to their favourable university programmes.
Three students did not intend to learn more chemistry due to the fact-bound
curriculum. The following are some quotes from the students who participated in
the interviews.
My father would like me to become a doctor. So, I may select chemistry when I am in
Secondary 6. I need to be more hardworking. I’ll spend more time reading chemistry
textbooks and try to solve more problems in chemistry. (Student 3, female, Secondary
5, School A)
 2196 D. Cheung

I would like to be a scientist or science teacher. I’ll choose chemistry as one of my elec-
tives at university. I think working in a chemistry lab would be an interesting way to
earn a living, particularly working in a forensic lab to help with police investigations.
I already told my teacher that I would like to do a project in chemistry after the school
exam. (Student 5, female, Secondary 7, School A)
In Hong Kong, I’m afraid that it’s difficult to get a job with a chemistry degree. We
don’t have large pharmaceutical companies in Hong Kong. We also don’t have any oil
refinery. (Student 10, male, Secondary 7, School B)
I’m not going to select chemistry in Secondary 6, because I want to obtain a BBA
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degree at university. Chemistry is not a requirement for admission to the BBA

programme. (Student 8, female, Secondary 5, School B)
I prefer to learn more biology. I need to memorise lots of facts and abstract concepts
in chemistry lessons … How come chemists used carbon-12 as a standard when calcu-
lating relative atomic mass? I don’t understand. (Student 2, female, Secondary 4,
School A)

Overall, the present findings generally confirm those of earlier studies in showing
that chemistry lessons are not particularly attractive to students across all grade
levels. For example, in a qualitative study involving 144 16-year-old students in the
UK, Osborne and Collins were surprised to find that ‘the subject that attracted the
most vehement expression for its lack of relevance and appeal was chemistry’ (2001,
pp. 448–449). Rop (1999) also criticised the chemical education in the USA. He
argued that the school chemistry is not good enough because it does not help
students understand what happens in daily things and fails to stimulate their desire
to learn. He pointed out that educational researchers are ‘good at saying that
subjects such as chemistry are important in themselves and important components
of a liberal education’ but they are not very good at ‘forming or articulating honest
reasons or incentives for learning difficult things such as real chemistry—those
reasons which will convince students who are understandably sceptical of the use
value of what they learn’ (Rop, 1999, p. 233).
The interview data were categorised on the basis of the four dimensions. Owing to
limitation of space I cannot describe the findings in detail here, but Table 2 demon-
strates how the interview data were categorised. After synthesising the information
collected from student interviews and literature review, the item pool consisted of
32 items—and 20 items were selected to form the trial version of the ATCLS.

Reliability and Construct Validity of Student Responses to the ATSCS Items

The analysis of the data collected by the trial version of the ATCLS found that the
Cronbach alpha values of the four subscales varied between .82 and .85. The item–
total correlations of the 20 items ranged from .47 to .79. Hence, the student data
were of adequate reliability. Table 3 summarises the results of the reliability test for
the final version of the ATCLS. The reliabilities of the four subscales were compara-
ble, but the Cronbach alpha values for the third and fourth subscales were a bit
smaller than those estimated for the trial data. This is probably due to the fact that
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2197

Table 2. Categorisation of interview data

Dimension Sample interview data

1. Liking for chemistry theory Chemistry lessons are much more boring than biology
lessons lessons.
Chemistry is one of my favourite subjects.
Chemistry lessons are interesting.
2. Liking for chemistry laboratory I like doing chemistry experiments.
work I had fun designing chemistry experiments.
3. Evaluative beliefs about school Some chemistry concepts are useful for people to solve
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chemistry everyday problems.

Chemistry is an important subject in the school curriculum.
4. Behavioural tendencies to I will spend more time reading chemistry textbooks and try
learn chemistry to solve more problems in chemistry.
I would like to do a project in chemistry after the school
examination.

only three items were retained on each dimension in the final version of the ATSCS.
Further research is planned to increase the number of items per subscale. As shown
in Table 3, all of the 12 item–total correlations were moderately positive, giving
support for the reliability of student data.

Table 3. Reliability estimates and item–total correlations (N = 954)

Item–total
Subscale and item correlation

Liking for chemistry theory lessons (estimated α = .86)

Q1. I like chemistry more than any other school subjects. .76
Q2. Chemistry lessons are interesting. .68
Q4. Chemistry is one of my favourite subjects. .79
Liking for chemistry laboratory work (estimated α = .84)
Q6. I like to do chemistry experiments. .75
Q7. When I am working in the chemistry lab, I feel I am doing .60
something important.
Q10. Doing chemistry experiments in school is fun. .75
Evaluative beliefs about school chemistry (estimated α = .76)
Q3. Chemistry is useful for solving everyday problems. .55
Q8. People must understand chemistry because it affects their lives. .63
Q11. Chemistry is one of the most important subjects for people to study. .61
Behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry (estimated α = .76)
Q5. I am willing to spend more time reading chemistry books. .57
Q9. I like trying to solve new problems in chemistry. .65
Q12. If I had a chance, I would do a project in chemistry. .57
 2198 D. Cheung

Table 4. Confirmatory factor analysis of student data

Standardised factor loadings of items under each dimension

Liking for chemistry Liking for Evaluative beliefs Behavioural tendencies
Item theory lessons chemistry lab work about school chemistry to learn chemistry

1 .83
2 .74
4 .91
6 .84
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7 .68
10 .88
3 .67
8 .75
11 .77
5 .71
9 .82
12 .64

Note. All factor loadings not shown in the table were set to zero. Effective sample size = 930.

Results of the confirmatory factor analysis are presented in Table 4. 24 out of the
954 students had missing data and were deleted by the listwise method. The stan-
dardised factor loadings were all most reasonable and statistically significant (t
values varied between 17.75 and 31.64). There were 48 possible factor loadings
(i.e., 12 items × 4 factors), but 36 of them were fixed at zero. Each of the 12 items
was retained in exactly the same subscale to which it had been assigned when the
ATCLS was developed. Fit indices generated by the LISREL program showed that
the model fitted the data well (e.g., χ2(48, N = 930) = 288.72, goodness of fit index
= .95, adjusted goodness of fit index = .92, normed fit index = .95, comparative fit
index = .96, root mean square error of approximation = .073). Because the chi-
square statistic is sensitive to sample size, I based evaluation of goodness-of-fit on
considerations of multiple measures of fit and beyond the statistical significance of
the chi-square. For example, the goodness of fit index has a maximum of 1.0 that
implies perfect fit, and a value close to .95 indicates a good model fit (Byrne, 1998).
Hence, the final version of the ATCLS not only managed to produce reliable data,
but also valid information about the multidimensionality of data.
Social psychologists have found that consistency may vary across the three types of
attitudinal responses (i.e., affective, cognitive, and behavioural), ranging from highly
consistent to highly inconsistent (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). Table 5 presents the
correlations generated by the confirmatory factor analysis of student data collected
by the final version of the ATCLS. All the correlations were positive and consider-
able, indicating that student responses to the four subscales were fairly consistent,
and thus no attitudinal ambivalence (Fabrigar et al., 2005) occurred. The correla-
tion between the scores on the first and fourth dimensions was the highest (.81).
This indicates that those students who liked chemistry theory lessons tended to
 Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons 2199

Table 5. Correlations among the four subscales

Subscale 1 2 3 4

1. Liking for chemistry theory lessons 1.00

2. Liking for chemistry lab work .56 1.00
3. Evaluative beliefs about school chemistry .57 .59 1.00
4. Behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry .81 .67 .75 1.00
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have a mental state of readiness to study more chemistry, and vice versa. This finding
is consistent with previous studies. For example, Crawley and Koballa (1992)
measured Hispanic-American students’ attitudes toward signing-up to take a chem-
istry course in school using four, seven-point, bipolar, evaluative, adjective pairs.
They found that students who intended to sign-up to take chemistry held favourable
attitudes toward chemistry enrolment. As can be seen in Table 5, the correlation
between the scores on the first and second dimensions was the smallest (.56). Such a
relatively small correlation was not unexpected because the teaching effectiveness of
chemistry teachers in a classroom may be different from that in a laboratory session.
A student may like chemistry laboratory work but hates theory lessons. Thus, this
finding provided support for constructing two subscales to separate students’ attitu-
dinal responses to laboratory work from those to theory lessons.
Clearly, the above findings indicate that the scores on the four subscales of the
ATCLS should not be combined to form a single total because comparisons of the
attitudes of subgroups of students may show larger differences on certain dimen-
sions than on others. When the subscale scores were subjected to two-way multivari-
ate analysis of variance, the interaction effect between grade level and gender on
students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons was statistically significant. The interac-
tion effect was attributable to scores on the theory lessons subscale and laboratory
work subscale. Male students in Secondary 4 and Secondary 5 liked chemistry
theory lessons more than their female counterparts. However, male students’ liking
for chemistry laboratory work declined when they progressed from Secondary 4 to
Secondary 7; no such a significant decline in attitude toward chemistry laboratory
work was found in females. Readers may refer to Cheung (in press) for details.

Conclusions
The development of positive attitudes regarding chemistry as a school subject is one
of the major responsibilities of chemistry teachers. In the present study, the 10-item
Enjoyment of Science Lessons scale in Fraser’s (1981) TOSRA was modified to
form a 12-item ATCLS. According to Fraser (1977), selection of attitude scales for
curriculum evaluation should consider three criteria: educational importance, multi-
dimensionality, and economy of time for administration. The ATCLS has met all
these criteria. The study described in the present paper differs from previous work in
that the development of the ATCLS started with a theoretical framework with four
 2200 D. Cheung

clearly defined dimensions. I conceptualised ‘attitude to chemistry lessons’ as a set

of a student’s affective reactions toward, evaluative beliefs about, and behavioural
tendencies to the learning of chemistry in school. This theoretical framework is
consistent with most current views of the attitude concept (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken,
2005; Oskamp & Schultz, 2005). Another unique feature of the present study is that
the multidimensionality of the ATCLS data was successfully established by confir-
matory factor analysis. The findings of my study have reinforced the notion that
students’ attitudes toward science lessons are multidimensional. I found that the
scores on the four ATCLS subscales were positively correlated but distinct; taken
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together, they constituted a multidimensional measure of attitude toward chemistry

lessons in school.
Apart from chemistry, the attitudinal aspect of student learning in other science
disciplines should also be evaluated (Jenkins, 2006). Although ATCLS was tailor-
made for school chemistry, the word ‘chemistry’ in the 12 items presented in
Table 3 can be replaced by biology or physics. Because my study was conducted in
Hong Kong, I plan further research to test the reliability and construct validity of
ATCLS data in other countries. Hopefully, the ATCLS could serve as a useful tool
for chemistry, biology, or physics teachers to collect information about the curricula
experienced by their students.

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