The Validity and Reliability Study of the Preliminary Analysis Application of the At-Home Early Literacy and Library Perceptions Scale
Özlem Tok, Mehmet CanatarWith the changing perspective on early literacy skills in today’s society, many children acquire letters, sounds, and most other literacy skills (print awareness, phonological awareness, letter and alphabet knowledge, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing) at home before starting school. The experiences parents should have in order to provide their children with early literacy skills at home are important in this regard. The foundation and development ofchildren’s early reading skills are largely formed in the home environment. Parents should be aware of what they can do to teach their children literacy skills and increase their reading motivation in early childhood. The first part of this study conducts the validity and reliability study of the At-Home Early Literacy and Library Perceptions Scale, which will be developed to determine parents’ library perceptions by measuring the experiences and competencies parents with children between the ages of 3-6 should have in order to provide their children with literacy skills in the home environment. The pilot study group consists of 100 parents with children between the ages of 3-6 living in Ankara’s central districts. The evaluations of the item pool prepared for the scale were made in line with the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. According to the findings, the At-Home Early Literacy and Library Perceptions Scale has been determined to be a valid and reliable measuring tool.
Evde Erken Okuryazarlık ve Kütüphane Algıları Ölçeğinin Ön Analiz Uygulamasının Geçerlik ve Güvenirlik Çalışması*
Özlem Tok, Mehmet CanatarGünümüz toplumunda erken okuryazarlık becerilerine olan bakış açısının değişmesiyle birlikte birçok çocuk okula başlamadan önce evde harfleri, sesleri ve diğer okuryazarlık becerilerinin (yazı farkındalığı, ses bilgisel farkındalık, harf ve alfabe bilgisi, sözcük bilgisi, anlama ve yazı yazma) çoğunu kazanmaktadır. Ebeveynlerin çocuklarına evde erken okuryazarlık becerilerini kazandırmak için sahip olması gereken deneyimler bu noktada önem arz etmektedir. Çocukların erken okuma becerilerinin temeli ve gelişimi büyük oranda ev ortamında oluşmaktadır. Ebeveynler çocuklarına erken çocukluk döneminde okuryazarlık becerilerini öğretmek ve okuma motivasyonlarını arttırmak için neler yapması gerektiğinin bilincinde olmalıdır. Bu çalışmanın ilk bölümünde 3-6 yaş aralığında çocuk sahibi olan ebeveynlerin ev ortamında çocuklarına okuryazarlık becerilerini kazandırmak için sahip olması gereken deneyim ve yetkinliklerini ölçerek ebeveynlerin kütüphane algısını belirlemek amacıyla geliştirilecek olan “Evde Erken Okuryazarlık ve Kütüphane Algısı Ölçeği”nin geçerlik ve güvenirlik çalışması yapılmıştır. Pilot çalışma grubunu, Ankara ili merkez ilçelerinde yer alan 3-6 yaş aralığında çocuk sahibi olan 100 ebeveyn oluşturmaktadır. Ölçek için hazırlanan madde havuzunun değerlendirmeleri açımlayıcı ve doğrulayıcı faktör analizi doğrultusunda yapılmıştır. Bulgulara göre, Evde Erken Okuryazarlık ve Kütüphane Algısı Ölçeği”nin geçerli ve güvenilir olduğu tespit edilmiştir.
The most important tool in today’s society is information. Knowledgeable societies are superior, powerful, and successful compared to other societies. Children who have the skills this era requires are one step ahead of other children. The important thing is to make plans regarding innovations and to add these innovations to one’s lives, with early literacy skills and library awareness being included among these innovations. Information society has increased the importance of these innovations. Because children are countries’ future, the greatest investments and innovations should be brought to them, and due to every child not having the same knowledge and skills, the most important task falls on parents. In order for parents to keep up with developments, their children need to gain literacy skills from an early age. While gaining these skills, they should not ignore the library phenomenon, because libraries are key stakeholders in the acquisition and development of early literacy skills for children.
Literacy encompasses people’s entire ability to think, communicate, research, and interact with society, and being literate is a lifelong process. Meanwhile, early literacy refers to all the knowledge and skills one is expected to acquire related to literacy skills, through which literacy experiences and knowledge are gained with the support of one’s parents, environment, preschool education institution prior to starting one’s formal literacy education in childhood, and the foundations for primary school education are laid.
Early childhood is a critical period of rapid development when the level of learning is at its highest, especially regarding the acquirement of basic skills. The relevant literature emphasizes
that literacy skills should be gained in early childhood and that the development of these preskills is acquired before the primary school period. The literature also states that a significant relationship exists between children’s early literacy development and primary school academic achievement. The foundations for teaching children’s literacy are laid with the acquisition of early literacy skills.
Parents are children’s first teachers and responsible for their children’s development and education until they start primary school. Once children start school, this responsibility is shared
between teachers and parents. The literacy environment at home involves all the opportunities offered to children through different materials, as well as the skills and knowledge tendencies parents must have in order to provide these opportunities. Early literacy at home involves the number of books the child has at home, the combined amount of time spent on reading and otherliteracy activities at home. The first step in developing a tool for measuring early literacy and library perceptions at home is to evaluate the process with valid and reliable tools and techniques. The purpose of this study is to address the question of what experiences parents should have in gaining these skills.
The sample of the study consists of 100 parents with children between the ages of 3-6 living in Ankara’s central districts. This study constitutes the pilot study of the scale being developed for the author’s doctoral thesis. The 61-item scale was obtained in line with the relevant literature review and then presented to 100 parents online to collect data. The obtained data were analyzed using principal component and confirmatory factor analyses. As a result of these applications, validity and reliability analyses were performed on the parents’ answers using the programs SPSS and AMOS, with the study creating and presenting tables on these analyses.
The KMO test result that was obtained for testing the sample size was found to be .867 (see Table 3). In addition, the value obtained for Bartlett’s sphericity test, which measures the
normality of the distribution, was 2,483.921. All these findings show the suitability of the data for factor analysis. The first stage of the factor analysis removed 13 items, the second stage removed another 10 items, and last stage removed another 3 items, after which the other analyses were made on a total of 35 items. The reasons for removing items from the scale included items with factor loading values less than 0.40 and items with high values in more than one factor whose difference between the load values was less than 0.10. The scree plot (see Figure 1) identified eight factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. However, when examining the eigenvalues, the presence of stationarity after six factors draws attention. Because at least four items should be found under the sub-dimensions, decisions were made regarding the six factors by examining the factors and items and taking into account expert opinion and the content of the scope. A path diagram (see Figure 2) was created for calculating the answers the parents gave. According to the findings, the scale has been found to be valid and reliable.