Evaluation of Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey

The colorado learning attitudes about science survey (class) is a widely used instrument designed to measure student attitudes toward physics and learning physics. previous research revealed a fairly complex factor structure. in this study,exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on data from an undergraduate introductory physics course (n=3844) to determine whether a more parsimonious factor structure exists. exploratory factor analysis results indicate that many of the items from the original class have poor psychometric properties and could not be used in a revised factor structure. the cross validation showed acceptable fit statistics for a three factor model found in the exploratory factor analysis. this research suggests that a more optimum measurement of students' attitudes about physics and learning physics is obtained with a 15-item instrument,which describes the factors of personal application,personal effort,and problem solving. the proposed revised version of the class offers researchers the opportunity to test a shortened version of the instrument that may be able to provide information about students' attitudes in the areas of personal application of physics,personal effort in a physics course,and approaches to problem solving. © 2014 published by the american physical society.