A scale to determine gender attitudes of primary school fourth grade students: a scale development study

While sex refers to the biological characteristics of individuals, gender refers to the roles expected of female and male individuals by society. The child first learns his or her gender within the family. Factors outside the family such as mass media, games and toys, books, peers, school, and teachers also affect the child’s gender development. Gender inequality is a major problem, especially in education, health, economy, and social and cultural areas. Thus, determining children’s gender role attitudes at an early age is important. Based on this idea, the study was aimed at developing the “Scale to Determine Gender Role Attitudes of Primary School Fourth Grade Students”. In the development process of the scale, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, fit indices, regression, and t-values of the items were analyzed, and reliability coefficients were calculated. After the process, it was determined that the scale consisted of 37 items and a single dimension, and that its KR-20 reliability coefficient was 0.90. In line with these findings, it can be said that the scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can measure gender role attitudes of primary school fourth grade students.