Development of an attitude and concept scale toward technology among 12- to 15-year-old students in the Bangkok metropolitan area, Thailand

The purpose of this study was to develop an Attitude and Concept Scale Toward Technology for use by Thai teachers at the secondary school level. This study provided an instrument for Thai secondary school teachers to determine their students' attitudes towards technology and concepts of technology.;The Technology Attitude and Concept Scale (TACS-Thai), an adaptation of the American Pupils' Attitudes Towards Technology (PATT-USA) instrument and the American Technology Attitude Scale (TAS-USA), consists of three sections. The first section of the instrument obtained demographic information about the respondents, including: (1) gender, (2) age, (3) grade, (4) respondent's involvement with technology education, (5) parent's career, and (6) technological environment at the home.;The second section obtained information about students' attitudes towards technology. There were 26 items divided over six subscales, including interests, role pattern, consequences, difficulty, curriculum, and career. Students responded by using a five choice Likert-type scale with three to five items per subscale.;The third section obtained information about the students' concept of technology, measuring cognitive or knowledge aspects based on five generally accepted characteristics of technology. There were 28 items divided over four subscales, including technology and society, technology and science, technology and skills, and technology and pillars.;Content validity of the TACS-Thai instrument was determined through a panel of experts consisting of five individuals with expertise in language translation, statistical analysis, instrument development, and secondary school education.;The study population included four secondary schools in the Bangkok metropolitan area, Thailand. The study consisted of a pilot study (N = 80) and a large group administration (N = 616). Statistical analysis included reliability measures using Cronbach's homogeneity coefficient alpha (Attitude Scale) and the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (Concept Scale). Both the Attitude Scale (overall correlation = .7366) and the Concept Scale (overall correlation = .6372) met the minimum criterion (.60).