Measure Development: The Children's Attitudes toward Technology Scale (CATS)

Abstract

The impact of technology on the current and future lives of society's youth makes it especially important to understand technology from their perspective. Although today's children have become the benefactors of an evolving technological society, few studies have addressed the assessment of their attitudes toward technology. This study describes the development of the Children's Attitude Toward Technology Scale (CATS) with 574 children in a rural school district. Principal components analysis of the CATS followed by varimax rotation indicated that item intercorrelations could be explained by two factors entitled “interest/aptitude” and “alternative preferences.” Subscales at two test administrations demonstrated good internal consistency and moderate test-retest stability. Significant differences were found on interest scores when comparing elementary and middle school students and on items reflecting alternative preferences. In addition, attitudes varied according to gender on subscales. Initial analyses suggest this new measure to effectively assess children's interests/aptitudes toward technology. Further study is needed to validate the measure.