Psychometric Properties and Correlates of the Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire (CASQ): A Measure of Students' Attitudes Related to Service-Learning.

Stukas, Clary, and Snyder (1999) conclude their review of service-learning programs and research with the suggestion: "... that evaluations be carefully constructed to assess the effects of service-learning for all involved--with an emphasis on rigorous experimental and survey methodology." Stukas et al. organize their review of service-learning outcomes around six major goals, including three that are the focus of the present research: Students who participate in service-learning may show increases in Self-Enhancement (self-esteem, personal efficacy, and confidence), Understanding of Self and World (personal growth, development of moral reasoning, empathic understanding, and attitudes toward diverse groups in society), and Value-Expression (expression of humanitarian and prosocial values through action and plans for future involvement in community service). The present study reports on the development of a questionnaire to assess students' self-evaluations concerning attitudes, skills and behavioral intentions that may be affected by service-learning participation. Items tapped aspects of the three goals that Stukas et al. described in their review. Measures typically used to assess service-learning outcomes have included various techniques: journal writings (Primavera, 1999; Yates & Youniss, 1996), interviews (Eyler & Giles, 1999), focus groups (Schmiede, 1995), and, especially, questionnaires in which students express agreement or disagreement with statements concerning their attitudes, beliefs, and self-evaluations. Such questionnaires have been used since the first service-learning program evaluations were undertaken. For example, Markus, Howard, and King (1993) and Kendrick (1996) used the Social Responsibility Inventory, developed by Howard and MacKeachie, to assess students' attitudes before and after participation in a service-learning course. Major constructs measured with this inventory were social responsibility (rating the importance of beliefs and activities such as equal opportunity for all and volunteer efforts) and personal efficacy for community change (Kendrick, 1996). Giles and Eyler (1994) used items from this inventory, with those from Astin (1992), to assess service-learning outcomes. These studies usually focused on students' responses to individual questionnaire items; none reported efforts to assess the reliability or validity of measures. Recently, questionnaires' psychometric aspects have received greater attention. For instance, Eyler, Giles, and Braxton (1997) developed a questionnaire to obtain college students' self-assessments of characteristics that might be affected by participation in service-learning, including citizenship skills (skills for political action, communication, ability to identify social issues, and tolerance), citizenship confidence (personal efficacy, belief that the community can be effective in solving its problems, and community connectedness), and social justice perceptions (locus of community problems, social justice, perspective-taking, and openness to other views). Most constructs were assessed by multiple items, so that internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach alpha) could be obtained; these were found to range from .46 to .80. Shiarella, McCarthy, and Tucker (2000) described developing the Community Service Attitudes Scale (CSIPI), which measures college students' attitudes about community service from the perspective of Schwartz' helping behavior model. Shiarella et al. used factor analyses to construct scales and reported internal consistency coefficients ranging from .53 to .90 for the several scales included on the CSIPI. The present study reports on developing the Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire (CASQ), on which college students can describe attitudes and skills that may be affected by a service-learning experience. Factor analysis was used to identify groups of related items on an initial form of the questionnaire (Comrey, 1988). …