Development of Safety Behavior Scale of Lower Secondary School Students

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to 1) build a safety behavior scale for lower secondary school students, 2) find the quality of the safety behavior scale for lower secondary school students, 3) assess the safety behavior of lower secondary school students. The sample consisted of 1440 lower secondary school students in the schools under the Office of Basic Education Commission in the Upper Northeast, Thailand. The research instrument was a safety behavior scale for lower secondary school students, which was an ordered-multiple choice questionnaire. The data analysis employed frequency, the mean and percentage, estimation 2 parameters of IRT. The cut-off scores of scales were developed by using the criterion zone. The research findings were as follows: 1) The safety behavior scale for the students that had been constructed was a 3-choice type, with multi-scoring options. It was composed of 3 dimensions: cognitive dimension, psychomotor dimension and affective dimension. Each dimension contained 16 items according to the structural map, having the IOC from 0.57 to 1.00, the discrimination from 0.21 to 0.69 and the reliability of 0.82, 0.75 and 0.72 respectively. 2) In the safety behavior scale for the students that had been constructed, 35 items had the quality according to the Item Response Theory. The cognitive dimension had 12 common slope parameters ranging from 0.50 to 0.73; the psychomotor dimension had 11 common slope parameters ranging from 0.53 to 0.75; and the affective dimension had 12 common slope parameters ranging from 0.50 to 1.02. There was no differential item function (DIF) between males and females. The cut-off scores of the safety behavior scale derived from analyzing the criterion zone, consisting of 3 levels of safety behavior as follows: level 1 had the level of competency () = -1.47 down, level 2 had the level of competency () =-1.47 to 0.78, and level 3 had the level of competency () = 0.78 up. 3) The results of the safety behavior assessment for lower secondary school students, on the whole, were at a moderate level, representing 70.70 percent. When considered by dimension, it was found that in the cognitive dimension most of the students had safety behaviors at a moderate level, representing 78.82 percent; in the psychomotor dimension, the safety behavior was at a moderate level, representing 67.92 percent; and in the affective dimension, the safety behavior was at a moderate level, representing 76.60 percent.