Perceived attributes of instructional computer use in early childhood education: A scale adaptation and validation study

Abstract

Based on Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations Theory, this study aims to describe the construction and validation of the “Perceived Attributes of Computer Use” (PACU) scale to measure the pre-service early childhood teachers’ (N=581) tendency towards computer use for instructional purposes in the early childhood settings. The development and validation process of the PACU scale, reworking on the structure and item numbers of the original English scale ‘Perceived Characteristics of Innovating’ (Moore & Benbasat, 1991), was accomplished in four steps, namely (1) translation and adaptation procedure, (2) Q-Sort method, (3) exploratory factor analysis, and (4) confirmatory factor analysis. A five-factor scale (i.e., relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability with eigenvalues of 8.1, 3.1, 2.3, 1.5, and 1.2, respectively) was revealed including 23 items and a good fit between the data set and the proposed Turkish version scale was confirmed (NNFI=.92, CFI=.93, RMSEA=.97, χ2/df=2.58). Moreover, the reliability value of the scale was found .90. In the end, the overall measures and evidence validated a ready-to-use scale for prospective early childhood teachers. © 2020, Ankara University. All rights reserved.