The development and standardization of three ethnic attitude scales concerning Hispanic Americans, Black Americans and Native Americans

Abstract

This dissertation involved the development of three attitude measuring scales relating to Hispanic Americans, Black Americans and Native Americans. The tests were designed to assess the current stereotypes as identified by Anglo-Americans and individual ethnic minorities. The Literature Review which surveyed an extended definition of attitudes and stereotypes illustrated the need for the instruments. The review also surveyed the major assessment methods extant in the literature on attitude and stereotype assessment. Instruments reviewed included Bogardus' Cummulative Scale of Social Distance, Thurstone's Method of Equal-Appearing Intervals, Likert's Scale, Guttman's Scalogram Analysis and Osgood's Semantic Differential (OSD). The foregoing tests were assessed by the criteria reported in the dissertation. The only test of those reviewed that would fulfill the established criteria was Osgood's Semantic Differential (OSD). Test items were collected in an informal survey conducted at Texas A&M University. Selection of the items for the preliminary scales was made by judges who were members of the individual ethnic groups. Item selection was based on the following: (1) no more than 45 items per test and (2) a proportion of 0.30 of the judges had to select the item. Preliminary scales were constructed with using the items selected. The researcher chose contrasting bipolar adjectives for each of the items in the scale. The preliminary scales were administered in a typical classroom in the Education and Curriculum Department to 24 Anglo-American students enrolled in a children's literature class. The data were analyzed utilizing Cronbach's coefficient alpha methodology. The resulting validity coefficients of the individual items were delimited to 30 of the highest validity items. Data were then reanalyzed utilizing the same statistical procedure. The resulting alphas were high (Hispanic American--0.9713, Black American--0.9502 and Native American--0.9330). The scales were designed to assess stereotyped attitudes of preservice teachers. Many preservice and inservice teachers were revealed in the review to have negative attitudes toward minority children, which have been shown to have a harmful effect on the academic progress and social development of minority children.