Academic Motivation Scale for Learning Biology: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

This study aimed to develop "Academic Motivation Scale for Learning Biology (AMSLB)" for high school students. The sample of the study consisted of randomly selected 472 students studying at the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades of a science high school and five Anatolian high schools located in the central district of Kars. The scale development process included three steps: (1) exploratory factor analysis, (2) replication of the exploratory factor analysis with a different sample, and (3) confirmatory factor analysis. According to the analyses results, the scale was composed of 19 items and 4 sub-scales. These sub-scales were named as Intrinsic Motivation, Amotivation, Extrinsic Motivation - Career and Extrinsic Motivation - Social. The internal consistency of the scale was computed by using Cronbach Alpha and it was revealed that the results derived from this dataset had high reliability.