Assessing and analyzing change in attitudes in the classroom

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Medical Education Research
• Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

Background:

• Assessing changes in subjective attributes like student attitudes is challenging in educational settings.
• Traditional quantitative methods may not fully capture nuanced shifts in attitude.
• Developing robust analytical approaches is crucial for evaluating educational interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore and present three distinct analytical methods for quantifying and qualifying attitude changes.
• To demonstrate the application of these methods in an educational context, specifically medical training.
• To provide a framework for analyzing changes in generally unmeasurable attributes.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of total attitude scores to provide a general index of attitude.
• Item-level analysis to assess attitudes towards specific topics and identify areas for improvement.
• Application of a qualified change algorithm to objectively measure attitude shifts.

Main Results:

• The total-score approach yielded a general index of positive attitude.
• Item-level analysis identified specific topics with the most positive or negative attitudes.
• The qualified change approach provided an objective measure of attitude shifts.

Conclusions:

• The three presented methods offer versatile approaches for assessing attitude changes in educational contexts.
• These methods are suitable for situations with imperfect measurements and subjective ratings.
• The findings support the use of diverse analytical strategies for comprehensive educational outcome evaluation.