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 theconstruction and validation of the “Perceived Attributes of Computer Use” (PACU) scale to measure thepre-service early childhood teachers’ (N=581) tendency towards computer use for instructional purposesin the early childhood settings. The development and validation process of the PACU scale, reworking onthe 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 adaptationprocedure, (2) Q-Sort method, (3) exploratory factor analysis, and (4) confirmatory factor analysis. Afive-factor scale (i.e., relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability witheigenvalues of 8.1, 3.1, 2.3, 1.5, and 1.2, respectively) was revealed including 23 items and a good fitbetween 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 overallmeasures and evidence validated a ready-to-use scale for prospective early childhood teachers.