The Albanian Adaptation of Physics Attitude Test : Validation with 10 th Grade Students

Attitude is an important factor in learning. The purpose of the study is to adopt a Turkish attitude test in Albanian language, to examine the secondary school students’ attitude towards Newton’s Laws of Motion, and to report the validity and reliability of the study. The sample was 387 secondary school students from five high schools in Albania. The original questionnaire measures five attitude components, which are enjoyment, self-efficacy, importance of physics, achievement-motivation, and interest related behavior. The data collected from five high schools was analyzed and similar factor structures were found as in the original questionnaire. Based on the principal component analysis five dimensions for learning physics were found. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability was found to be. 75. Physics Attitude Test, is a tool to assess secondary school students’ attitude towards Newton’s Laws of Motion.


Introduction and Literature Review
Physics, as a science, a tool for grasping better understanding of nature.The developments in physics during the last centuries not only effected the science and technology but also affected our lives.Educational sciences are also had their share.One of the major goals of researchers is to find and effective method in physics learning as researches indicate that physics achievement is less than other disciplines (Gok & Silay, Dieck, Rivard & Straw, Mattern & Schau, as cited in Kaya & Boyuk, 2011).Abak (2003) stated that %50 of the variance in learning outcomes can be explained by cognitive characteristics where %50 is undefined leaded researchers to focus on affective characteristics which may affect learning.The result of researches on these characteristics, the key affective components can be grouped under attitude and motivation (Gungor, Eryılmaz, & Fakıoglu, 2007).
Although there are many definitions of attitude, according Ajzen and Fishbein (1977) "a person's attitude represents his evaluation of the entity in question".Attitude is summation of someone's "inclinations and feelings, prejudice or bias, preconceived notions, ideas, fears, threats, and convictions about any specified topic" (L.L. Thurstone, 1928).As cited in Tanrıverdi and Demirbaş (2012) attitude as the most important affective factor which influences learning, it has positive as well as negative effect on individuals learning (Yaşar & Anagün, 2008).Attitude is formed by organization of experiences and knowledge (Tavşancıl, 2002), and according to Ekici (2002) one of the best descriptors of behavior with cognitive, affective and psychomotor dimensions (as cited in Tanrıverdi & Demirbaş, 2012).Gagne (1985) described attitude as interaction of cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains as a mental state where learners' behaviors effected while they make their choices (as cited in Olagunju & Zongo, 2011).According to Koballa and Glynn (2007) attitude effects motivation and motivation effects learning.Attitude can also be defined as "tendency to respond positively or negatively to things, people, places, events or ideas" (Simpson, Koballa, Oliver and Crawley as cited in Tokgöz, 2007).
It is important to measure a construct like attitude as well to define it.It had been always assumed to be a complex process.L. L. Thurstone (1928) described this process as: In devising a method of measuring attitude I have tried to get along with the fewest possible restrictions because sometimes one is tempted to disregard so many factors that the original problem disappears.I trust that I shall not be accused of throwing out the baby with its bath.
As stated by Kaya and Boyuk (2011) there are many scales developed to measure attitude.L. Thurstone and Chave (1929) developed an attitude scale.Later on Likert, Roslow, and Murphy (1934) utilized a simple and reliable method to score Thurstone Attitude Scales which is well-known and widely used even after 80 years.
One of the most challenging lessons for students from secondary school to university even for adults in graduate studies is physics (Erdemir, 2009).As cited in Erdemir (2009) learning environment and attitude towards it is also important factor though it should be also measured while measuring students' attitudes towards physics should take into account their attitudes towards the learning environment (Crawley & Black, 1992).
Basic objective of science learning should be increasing students' attitude towards physics as their attitude (feel) towards science influences their performance while research in the field showed that increase in students' science achievement can be possible with positive attitudes toward science (Cannon & Simpson, 1985;Simpson & Oliver, 1985;1990, as cited in Tokgöz, 2007).
Researchers conducted abundant studies in order to find out the factors effecting the attitude towards science/physics based on the fact that the students do not like physics lessons as well as their physics teaches unless they have positive attitude towards physics (Erdemir, 2009).
The purpose of the study is to adopt a Turkish attitude test in Albanian language, to examine the secondary school students' attitude towards Newton's Laws of Motion, and to report the validity and reliability of the study.

The research question of the study as follows:
Is Physics Attitude Test (PATT) reliable to use into Albanian culture to measure 10 th grade students' attitude towards Newton's Laws of Motion?

Rationale
It is not only important to sustain a classroom environment that increases students' attitudes towards physics to promote their learning, but also it requires full use of abilities and resources.As previous studies implied the effect of positive attitude increasing students' achievement, learning environments should be developed in order to escalade students' attitude towards physics.To achieve this goal attitude and its factors should be able to be investigated.Consequently, measuring students' attitude towards physics while adapting Physics Attitude Test into Albanian culture and classifying the factors are the main purpose of this study.The Physics Attitude Test aims to measure university students' 10 th grade students' attitude towards Newton's Laws of Motion.

Method
The methods section consists of four parts where instrument, translation, sample, and data analysis will be explained briefly.

Instrument
The original test to measure the level of students' attitude towards Newton's Laws of Motion content was developed by Taşlıdere (2002) in Turkish, Küçüker (2004) modified by reversing five items to its negative form and changing two items to their new forms which are 23 rd and 24 th items (as cited in Serin, 2009).Both of the original tests were to measure students' attitude towards "simple electric circuits", which were replaced by "pressure" in order to be applied for pressure unit (Serin, 2009).Further versions of the attitude test applied to other topics like force and motion unit (Gökalp, 2011;Temizkan, 2003), growth in living things (Koksal & Berberoglu, 2014), Newton's Laws of Motion unit (Eryılmaz, 2004), etc. PATT adopted from revised versions (Serin, 2009) into Albanian.As it is measuring students' attitude towards pressure content, "pressure" term in the test replaced with "Newton's Laws of Motion" terms.PATT measures 10 th grade students' attitudes toward Newton's Laws of Motion.Newton's Laws of Motion covers the following content: • Newton's First Law of Motion • Newton's Second Law of Motion • Velocity change with the effect of constant force • Relation of acceleration with the magnitude of force • Newton's Third Law of Motion There are 24 questions (see appendix) rated on 5-point Likert scale.Responses are rated from strongly disagree to strongly agree and coded among one to five respectively.Hence, the score of students from this test may range from 24 to 120.Lower scores indicate negative, higher scores indicate positive attitude towards Newton's Laws of Motion content.PATT has five components that are enjoyment, self-efficacy, importance of physics, achievement-motivation, and interest related behavior.The items and the corresponding components of the attitude test (AT) in Taşlıdere's study (as cited in Serin, 2009) are given in Table 1.The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of the test reported by Taşlıdere, Küçüker (as cited in Serin, 2009) and Serin (2009) where it was reported as 0. 94, 0. 83, and 0. 91 respectively.The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of PATT is 0. 75, which means that at least 75% of the total score variance is due to true score variance.

Translation
In terms of validity, three independent bilingual researchers made Albanian translation individually then the inconsistencies were compared.Later on, back translation into English was made by other two researchers to check consistency.Before the final revision was administered to 387 high school students, the translated version is reviewed to check the face and content validity while administering to 17 high school students.

Sample
The sample of this study was 387 high school students from five different high schools in Albania.The test was administered during physics courses to 198 female students, 189 male students, and it has taken around fifteen minutes.

Data Analysis
The data collected from high school students analyzed via SPSS 21. 0 for Windows.Students' response were coded according to their response strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4), strongly agree (5).The score range from minimum 24 to maximum 120.The reliability of the PATT was analyzed by internal consistency which is measured by Cronbach's alpha.For educational studies, the suggested alpha value should be at least.70 or preferably higher (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2003, p. 168).Kaya and Boyuk (2011) compared 20 research studies on students' attitudes towards science content and reported that the Cronbach-Alpha reliability coefficient was in range of 0. 65 -0.98.

Analysis and Results
The PATT items were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value was.879, expressing the suitability of data for factor analysis, exceed the recommended value of 0. 6 (Field, 2000, as cited in Çetin-Dindar & Geban, 2010).Additionally, Barlett's Test of Sphericity reach statistical significance supporting the factorability of the correlation matrix ( =2499.184, df = 276,.000).The factor analysis of pretest data yielded eight components where the eigen-values were grater then 1. 000.Then, the analysis repeated by restricting the number of components to five.The eigen-values of five components are 4. 579, 4. 273, 2. 996, 2. 343, and 1. 742 respectively.Eigenvalues and explained variance for the components of PATT are given in Table 2.
The reliability coefficient for the test estimated by Cronbach's alpha was 0. 75, indicating satisfactory internal consistency.Guttman split-half coefficient is 0. 66 which is also acceptable.The five components explained a total of 66. 388% of the variance, with component interest related behavior explaining 19.081%, component self-efficacy explaining 17. 803%, component achievement-motivation explaining 12. 482%, component importance of physics explaining 9. 764%, and component enjoyment explaining 7. 258% (see Table 2).
Self-efficacy, interest related behavior and achievement motivation are almost identical, only item 24 was loaded to achievement motivation.Other components are also has similar loaded items.One item from enjoyment component was loaded to self-efficacy component, one item from enjoyment component was loaded to importance of physics component, one item from interest related behavior was loaded to achievement-motivation component and two components from importance of physics component were loaded to interest related behavior component.Factor analysis results of the PATT are given in Error!Reference source not found.and component loadings of items to the components are given in Table 4.

Conclusions and Implications
Attitude is not a variable which can be observed and measured directly because of that it had been accepted as a latent variable.Latent variables as they are not easy to measure and interpret they were rarely being included in research studies (Çetin-Dindar & Geban, 2010).Based on the findings of the study which aimed to measure students' attitudes towards Newton's Laws of Motion content showed that the adopted version of AT is a valid and reliable tool in Albanian context including the components of interest related behavior, self-efficacy, achievement-motivation, importance of physics, and enjoyment.
As the literature on similar studies mentioned that it is important to measure students' attitudes in order to sustain effective learning.The study will contribute to the literature for the researchers and teachers in order to measure student's attitudes towards a specific content as well as Newton's Laws of Motion content.The researchers and teachers who wants to use PATT for different contents may use it while changing "Newton's Laws of Motion" terms with the respective terms that they want to measure attitude towards that content.As a result it can be also recommended that researchers, instructors, etc. can use AT to evaluate students' attitude towards specific content in secondary school courses.
The results of the study is encouraging to translate the AT to other language settings as it is also valid and reliable in Albanian culture, it might be translated and used in other languages after proper validity and reliability measures taken into account.Additionally, the similar versions of this test could be adapted to the other disciplines like chemistry, mathematics or biology.The test also can be used in other environmental settings such as essays, interviews, case studies, and other qualitative methods to obtain new data.
Further studies may include gender differences, learning environments where technology and/or hands on activities involved, learning in native language, teacher specifications, socioeconomic status, teaching methods and other variables which may affect student's attitude.