Health Professions Education (Dec 2015)
Validation Study of a General Subject-matter Interest Measure: The Individual Interest Questionnaire (IIQ)
Abstract
Importance: Interest is considered a significant educational construct. A validated instrument that can reliably be used to measure interest across different subject domains is however not available. Objective: To report the findings of two studies that were conducted to test the validity and reliability of a newly designed Individual Interest Questionnaire (IIQ). Design: Study 1 was a construct validation study involving three independent high school samples from different disciplines. In Study 2 the predictive validity of the IIQ was tested by examining how well the IIQ predicts cognitive engagement and on-task behaviors and attitudes of students. Participants: A sample of 230 chemistry, geography, and history high school students (Study 1) and 82 biology high school students (Study 2). Setting: High schools in Singapore. Main outcome measures: Confirmatory factor analysis, Hancock׳s coefficient H, test of multi-group invariance, cognitive engagement and on-task behaviors and attitudes (i.e., curiosity, enjoyment, self-efficacy, attention, and boredom). Results: Confirmatory factor analysis for the three samples suggest adequate fit of the data with the hypothesized model: History: χ2/df=1.47; p=.13, RMSEA=.08, CFI=.96; Chemistry: χ2/df=1.41; p=.17, RMSEA=.07, CFI=.98; and Geography: χ2/df=1.51; p=.11, RMSEA=.09, CFI=.94. Reliability analysis revealed high levels of reliability of the IIQ: coefficient H History: .81; coefficient H Chemistry: 85; and coefficient H Geography: .85. The test for multi-group invariance was ns, suggesting that the factor structure of the IIQ was invariant across the three subjects. The data fitted the predictive path model well: χ2/df=1.60; p=.11, CFI=.98, RMSEA=.09 and the standardized regression weights of individual interest for the outcome measures ranged from: .69 (p<.001) cognitive engagement to −.24 (p=.03) boredom. Conclusion and relevance: The results suggest that the IIQ is a reliable and valid instrument to measure individual interest across different disciplines and demonstrated adequate predictive validity for cognitive engagement and on-task behaviors and attitudes. The IIQ fills the gap in the literature for a generic instrument to measure individual interest.
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