Revisiting the Scientific Habits of Mind Scale for Socio-Scientific Issues in the Indonesian Context

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable scale measuring the Indonesians' scientific habits of mind (SHOM) levels via the SSIs in context. The sample of the study consisted of 658 Indonesian people (aged 18-68 years; 385 females and 273 males; mean age: 35.5) randomly drawn from 3 districts of Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. To ensure content validity, the researchers matched SHOM (mistrust of arguments from authority, open-mindedness, scepticism, rationality, objectivity, suspension of belief, and curiosity) with the SSIs in the Indonesian context. A group of experts and a pilot study with 10 lay people ensured face validity. Concurrent validity was verified via independent samples t-test. To con?rm convergent and discriminant validity, con?rmatory factor analysis, and reliability values were calculated. Because the ?nal version (33 items) of the SHOM scale has high validity in content, face, convergent, discriminant, and concurrent, it provides valid conclusions based on the theoretical constructs for the sub-scales. This suggests that the SHOM scale may be adapted or improved for SSIs in different contexts.