Counter-stereotypical opinions throughout the researchers

To measure teenage students’ attitudes off scientists past actual attributes, the study people modified five products regarding past relevant education you to definitely surveyed elementary youngsters (DeWitt et al., 2011) and you may pupils (Wyer mais aussi al., 2010). A few circumstances inquire about the sort of functions one to researchers carry out: “Scientists always works alone in laboratories” and you may “Experts can work during the communities otherwise groups”; while about three activities get feedback about scientists’ passions and private attributes: “Most scientists are geeks or nerds,” “Individuals who are effective in science cannot be great at most other anything, instance activities otherwise artwork,” and you may “Experts try curious and inventive some one.” Every one of these products got effect kinds ranging from step one (Firmly Disagree) in order to cuatro (Strongly Consent); things that have a negative valence (elizabeth.g., Extremely experts is actually geeks otherwise nerds) was indeed opposite-coded making sure that for all factors, a top get represented a far more positive or counter-stereotypical consider. By using the Skewness-Kurtosis try to possess normality (thru Stata statistical application), i concluded that the fresh new distribution of all five situations rather deviated on the typical distribution out of one another thinking out of skewness and kurtosis. Particularly, consistent with some prior browse discussed significantly more than (Garriott et al., 2017; Nassar-McMillan ainsi que al., 2011), stuff have been every adversely skewed, in a manner that total college students held some confident viewpoints regarding the researchers. Ergo, we dichotomized for every single product, such that 1 illustrated firmly agreeing with a workbench-stereotypical statement on boffins (rating regarding 4 otherwise firmly agree) and you can 0 represented a get off 3 otherwise less than. Footnote step three

Independent variables

To determine the factor structure underlying the five items related to counter-stereotypical beliefs about scientists and establish its validity, we randomly divided our sample into two separate and equal-sized groups to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (DeCoster, 1998; Fabrigar et al., 1999). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using a principal factors extraction method was conducted with the first sub-set of data, representing half of our dataset (N = 554). This produced a one-factor solution, as indicated by the inspection of the scree plot test and eigenvalues (Costello Osborne, 2005), that explained about 41% of the variance. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of 0.72 indicated an acceptable sampling adequacy (Kaiser, 1974). Additionally, all items loaded onto the single factor, with factor loadings ranging from 0.58 to 0.71, and communalities ranging from 0.33 to 0.51. These moderate to strong factor loadings and our conceptualization of students’ counter-stereotypical beliefs about scientists suggest that all five items be retained (Costello Osborne, 2005). Subsequently, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to validate the structure of the factor with the second half of our sample (N = 554). The fit statistics indicated an adequate model fit, including a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.08 (where values less than or equal to 0.08 indicate an acceptable fit, and 90% CI is [0.05,0.11]), a comparative fit index (CFI) of 0.94 (where values greater than 0.90 indicate an acceptable model fit) and a Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual (SRMR) of 0.04 (where values less than or equal to 0.08 indicate a good fit) (Hu Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2015). While the chi-squared statistic for the CFA model was significant (? 2 = , df = 5, p < 0.001), this statistic is known to be sensitive to large sample sizes such as ours (Hair et al., 2010). The standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.41 to 0.54, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.60, which is somewhat low but still within the acceptable range (Bagozzi Yi, 1988; Hair et al., 2010).

In the end, to produce the scale utilized in the latest analyses shown here, students’ solutions all over most of the items have been averaged, so high scores into level need holding even more prevent-stereotypic values regarding the scientists, when you’re down scores portray the exact opposite. Put differently, the scale try a way of measuring solid counter-stereotypical philosophy from the scientists, as it captures viewpoints which are not only neutral viewpoints from experts, but rather opinions out-of boffins that will be brand new anti-thesis away from typically slim and you will restrictive stereotypical photographs (e.grams., boffins are geeks otherwise nerds, and you can scientists functions alone within the a lab). We declaration intercourse and you may racial/ethnic differences in restrict-stereotypical values regarding abilities part.