Development and Psychometric Properties of a Scale for Measuring Attitudes Toward the Landscape

Abstract

This article presents the procedure for developing a tool to measure attitudes towards landscapes. The limited existing tools in the literature provided the necessary insights for defining the construct and creating the items. The tool was administered twice. Based on the first administration, which involved 265 undergraduate students in Primary Education Sciences, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted, resulting in three scales measuring attitudes towards 1) rural/natural landscapes, 2) urban landscapes, and 3) active engagement with the landscape. The second administration, involving 274 students from the same course, was used for a confirmatory factor analysis on the three-scale model, which showed good fit indices. In both administrations, the three scales achieved Cronbach's alpha values between 0.75 and 0.85. Thus, the tool can be useful for future research aimed at assessing the effectiveness of training interventions for future teachers on landscape education. Since the tool is not standardized and was developed only for future teachers, future research could standardize it by administering it to a representative sample of adult citizens (not just future teachers). Additionally, a version for children could be developed to assess the effectiveness of landscape and territorial education interventions in primary schools.