Lifelong Learning Attitude Scale (LILAS) for Healthcare Students in Higher Education: Development, Validity, Reliability Study

Abstract

Aim: One of the leading goals of health education in recent years is to provide students with lifelong learning skills. Assuming that the desire to be a lifelong learner and continuous learning is at the centre of the context of lifelong learning, it is important to try to predict the potential behaviour of the individual in his/her personal, social or professional life. The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable specific measurement tool that can measure the lifelong learning attitudes of higher education students studyimg health sciences.Methods: In order to create an item pool to have a draft scale, the relevant literature was reviewed, similar scales were analyzed and in-depth interviews were performed with health care students. A 41-item draft scale was created and piloted to 28 postgraduate students at Ege University Institute of Health Sciences to investigate face validity of the scale. Then, the draft scale was applied to 555 students from Ege University (Institute of Health Sciences), and Süleyman Demirel University (Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Health Sciences). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed with the data and a five-factor 23-item scale was obtained. This final form of the scale was applied to students of Celal Bayar University Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Health Sciences (n=253) for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to show compatibility of the model in similar samples.Results: On the scale, five factors were found to be structurally suitable for measuring the determined construct. Factor loadings of 23 items, which explain 59.74% of the total variance, varied between 0.849 and 0.421, and common variance values varied between 0.611 and 0.360. The overall internal consistency coefficient of the scale was 0.911, and a statistically significant difference was observed between the lower 27% and upper 27% groups (p < 0.001). As a result of CFA, it was determined that all fit indices of the model were within the ideal fit ranges. (χ²/sd=1,743 SRMR=0,0512; RMSEA=0,054; CFI=0,957; NFI=0,905; GFI=0,888>AGFI=0,858). Conclusions: This psychometric structure, which was developed considering theoretical framework of lifelong learning attitude, has been transformed into a valid and reliable measurement model by EFA. Tis model was shown to yield statistically significant compatibility results in a different sample with similar characteristics by CFA. Thus, the scale seems suitable to be used by educational policy developers, educators, and researchers to investigate possible factors affecting lifelong learning attitude.