| Author: | Chan, Kam-ming Kenneth |
| Title: | Developing and validating an instrument for assessing the felt educational needs of the elderly |
| Degree: | M.Ed. |
| Year: | 2005 |
| Subject: | Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations Older people -- Education -- China -- Hong Kong Needs assessment -- China -- Hong Kong |
| Department: | School of Professional Education and Executive Development |
| Pages: | ix, 79 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | A well-developed measurement could benefit both educational institutions and elderly service agencies to make their own educational need assessment according to their local need of the elderly. The objective of this study was to develop a scale of felt educational need for the elderly based on the common theme proposed by McClusky (1973) and Lowy (1987) as well as to verify it by a series of validating procedures. With the help of theoretical framework, item pool based on it was constructed. An expert panel was then formed to review those items for the purpose of justifying the face and content validity of the item. In order to make a valid and reliable measurement, a series of procedure was needed to fulfill in the developing and validation process. In stage one, content validity, face validity, construct validity and reliability of the measurement were the focuses for scale development. In stage two, the scale was further examined on convergent validity and test & retest reliability for scale validation. In the validation process, analysis of correlation between felt and expressed needs as well as correlation between test and retest on the same respondents had been launched. In response to the comments from expert panel, amendments were carried out within the content of the scale. Items on health, personal relation and financial security were included in the subscale 1 and some adjustments on wordings were included. For the data collection in stage one and stage two, a total of 383 responses and 113 responses were received and overall response rate reached to 95.7% and 94.1% respectively. For construct validity, factor analysis was carried out. Result of the rotated component matrix reflected that the basic structure for the scale was matched with the theoretical framework. However, one dimension showed sub-dimensions within theoretical framework, thus further break down of that dimension was needed. Besides, some subscales were too close in relationship, which could be regarded as the same dimension. That imply the differentiation of such dimensions was meaningless for the respondents. For convergent validity, most subscales of felt needs could predict the result of expressed needs. However, some items of subscale 5 were closely related to subscale 6 and they were not fully corresponding to the expressed need, thus adjustment should be launched. Besides, subscale 6 correlated not only corresponding subscale of expressed need, but also another dimension of expressed needs. It reflected that the distinction of subscale 6 was still questioning. Reliability coefficient of the scale and subscales in the first stage and second stage indicated that the internal consistency reliability for each subscale was reasonably high. Comparison for those item-total statistics showed that some items were relatively weak in correlation with other items. Thus, items would be amended or deleted. For test and retest reliability, both subscales had a significant correlation between test and retest which reflected certain reliability of the scale although some subscales did not have high correlation in test and retest. Exploration on the correlation among different variables was carried out. Only two pairs of variables found to have weak to moderate significant correlation. Higher the education level of respondent tended to select more course of abstract thinking and spend more on learning. Overall, the validity and reliability of the scale was satisfactory in general. Nevertheless, further amendment on the structure of the scale and reduction on some items were needed. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
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| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b18342243.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 7.25 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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