Can We Compare Attitude Scores among Diverse Populations? An Exploration of Measurement Invariance Testing to Support Valid Comparisons between Black Female Students and Their Peers in an Organic Chemistry Course

Abstract

Chemistry education research has sought to understand why students struggle in organic chemistry courses. Beyond the volume and difficulty of the material taught in this course, there are also affective factors, such as attitude toward chemistry, that can influence how students perform. Studies have documented cases in which students of underrepresented minority backgrounds in science fields have less positive attitudes than their majority peers. Thus, in this study, we investigated whether the significant positive attitude gains found in a flipped classroom compared to a traditional lecture course extended to the Black female students in the sample when compared to the rest of their peers. Our study employs measurement invariance testing, which reveals whether an instrument's internal structure holds for different groups, to support valid comparisons. The study documents that Black female students began the course with lower attitude scores than their peers. Results of this study indicate that, while Black female students experience similar attitude gains to the rest of their peers in the flipped classroom, initial attitude differences are not completely erased by this single experience. Our study also uses structural equation modeling to describe the relationship between attitude and achievement in this flipped organic chemistry classroom. The attitude− achievement relationship was successfully modeled by a reciprocal causation framework in which emotional satisfaction had a small but significant and positive relationship with subsequent achievement measures. In light of the observed relationship between attitude and achievement, this finding suggests that continued research into both attitudinal and achievement factors for students from populations underrepresented in the sciences is warranted.

A QuantCrit Investigation of Society’s Educational Debts Due to Racism and Sexism in Chemistry Student Learning

“…Few studies, however, have investigated equity in undergraduate chemistry education 1 . In our review of the literature, we found 18 articles that quantitatively measured race order inequities in undergraduate chemistry classrooms [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] . Studies that examined race classified students as either majority (White and Asian students) or underrepresented minority students (URM; Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and American Native students).…”

Examining the Invariance of a Measurement Model of Teachers’ Awareness and Exposure Levels to Nanoscience by Using the Covariance Structure Approach

“…Some of them are given below. Rocabado et al (2019) performed measurement invariance testing for the configural, metric, and scalar models comparing black female students and all other students within the traditional and flipped courses for the two-factor model prescribed for the pre and posttests. Their analysis results showed that configural, metric, and scalar invariance was ensured.…”

Measuring Attitude Towards Chemistry, Biology, and Math at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

“…Fostering positive student attitudes toward science is an important component to education, and attitude has been shown to correlate strongly with student achievement, persistence, and retention. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] However, while nearly all faculty likely feel competent to assess student skills and knowledge, assessing attitude is often viewed as much more difficult, in part due to their lack of knowledge about attitude. For this reason a few instruments for measuring attitude in science classrooms have been developed.…”

“…To address these concerns Xu and Lewis refined the ASCI to make it easier to interpret and to be more valid for a wider range of student populations, as well as a second refinement altering the item order to improve the instrument's factor structure. 1,5 As part of a 5-year goal for the chemistry department to implement and assess pedagogical changes in the lower-division chemistry courses, we were interested in measuring student attitude. However, while we planned on using one of the ASCI variants there were two issues that concerned us.…”

“…However, while we planned on using one of the ASCI variants there were two issues that concerned us. First, while the ASCIv2 and ASCIv3 had been shown to be valid instruments for a variety of undergraduate populations, 5,[8][9] there are cultural differences to how the questions are interpreted. 27 In addition, it was unclear that either instrument had been validated at a Hispanic-Serving Institution.…”