Development of A Curriculum Type Preference Scale for Preschool Education Vocational University

Abstract

Exploring students’ preferences for curriculum types is beneficial for further designing curriculum structures based on the differentiated needs of students, thereby improving curriculum and education quality. To make up for the lack of an effective measurement instrument for investigating the curriculum type preferences of Chinese vocational university students majoring in preschool education, a 5-point Likert scale is designed and developed in this study. The development procedure consists of three phases: (1) the scale generation phase; (2) the scale evaluation phase, including expert evaluation and target population pretesting; and (3) the scale testing phase, including first testing, second testing, and third testing. The results show that the initial scale consisted of three constructs (theory curriculum, application curriculum, and internship curriculum) and 21 items in total. By removing one item from the initial scale, 20 items in the final scale have been proven to have acceptable validity and reliability. The conclusions suggest that the curriculum type preference scale can be applied in practice, and the scale development procedure and methods in this study can serve as a theoretical reference for scale developers.