Cross-Cultural Evaluation of Item Wording Effects on an Attitudinal Scale

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that method effects associated with item wording produce artifactual factors and threaten scale validity. This study examines item wording effects on a scale of attitudes toward learning mathematics for Taiwanese and U.S. samples. Analyses from a series of CFA (confirmatory factor analysis) models support the presence of method effects for both samples. In addition, findings show that U.S. students tended to report higher means on not only the substantive factors but also the method factor, compared to Taiwanese students. The effect sizes on the mean differences are medium to large.