School children's responses on a semantic differential over a 10-year span

A semantic differential scale was administered to 208 school children when they were in the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades. Their perceptions towards two concepts were measured, Education (going to school) and Work (having a job). Each semantic differential scale had 15 adjective pairs and reflected the three underlying factors of Evaluative, Potency, and Activity. Because the study was conducted for 10 years (ages seven to 18), the changing cognitive developmental stages of the children were expected to influence factor analytic and reliability results. Confirmatory factor analysis, which forced the data into three factors, did not clearly identify the expected three factors, although more items loaded on the three factors with age. An exploratory factor analysis identified a trend across grades from six to four factors over time. Reliability also improved across age groups. Caution should be exercised when using the semantic differential with young children in investigations of abstract concepts.