Developing a Digital Empathy Scale to Measure and Assess Upper Secondary School Students in the 21St Century: An Application of Item Response Theory
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Abstract
This research aimed to (1) investigate and synthesize specific models and characteristics of a digital empathy scale to measure and assess upper secondary school students, (2) assess the needs of the specific models and characteristics of the digital empathy scale, and (3) study the psychometric properties of the digital empathy scale through application of the Item Response Theory. The study was divided into 3 stages. Stage 1 dealt with the study and synthesis of the model and characteristics of the digital empathy scale. Data were collected from a literature synthesis and interviews with 5 experts. Data analysis employed content analysis. Stage 2 dealt with assessment of needs of the models and characteristics of the digital empathy scale. The target group comprised 143 teachers and 755 students, totaling 898). A need assessment form was used in collecting the data and the modified Priority Needs Index (PNI) was used in prioritizing the needs. Stage 3 dealt with the study on psychometric properties of the digital empathy scale. The target group comprised 755 students. The digital empathy scale was used in collecting the data and the Grade Response Model (GRM) was used in analyzing the psychometric properties, namely: (1) content validity, (2) reliability, (3) item information function, (4) test information function, (5) slope, and (6) threshold, using the MULTILOG 7.03 program.
The findings revealed that:
1) The digital empathy comprised 5 components, namely: posting, sharing, commenting, responsive reactions, and other forms of assistance. The majority of the measure's format and specific characteristics were multiple-choice with multiple scoring.
2) Regarding the needs of the specific models and characteristics of the digital empathy scale, it was found that (1) the rating scale ranked first (PNImodified = 0.154), (2) the scale with no more than 20 items ranked first, (PNImodified = 0.150, and (3) the online format of scale ranked first (PNImodified = 0.144).
3) The psychometric properties of the 20-item digital empathy scale, on the whole, met the criteria, with content validity from Index of Item Objective Congruence (IOC) ranging from 0.67-1.00, total reliability of 0.922, item information function values ranging from 0.196 to 15.097 at ability (θ) ranging from -2.20 to 1.40, test information function value of 76.384 at ability (θ) -0.40, slope ranging from 0.87 to 7.72, and threshold values β1(SE) ranging from -3.37 to -0.77 and β2(SE) ranging from -0.41 to 1.63.
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