الملخص الإنجليزي
The study aimed to construct a measure of students' attitudes towards English
language by using the Thurston method with equal appearing intervals. Basically, the
study targeted two samples the first one was the exploratory and the second was the
main sample, both samples targeted meal and female students. The constructed measure
built with equal appearing intervals principles, first there were (72) items which were
presented to (14) judges to check the propriety of the items and its linguistic
construction. Second, after reviewing judges notes the measure was written in the
primary shape which included (30) items. Next, the items were presented to (40) judges
with the aim of grading the items among (11) positions. After collecting judges' data,
the researcher used the median to find out the scale value, beside that the Interquartile
Range were used to explore the range of variance among the judges' judgments. Based
on that the final measure revealed with (20) items which covered all grades on the
measure. To verify the validity of the constructed measure, the face validity and
Exploratory Factor Analysis where used, the results of Exploratory Factor Analysis
showed that there is one dominant dimension, and it interprets the variation in students"
attitudes toward English language. To estimate the measure reliability three methods
where used: the Spearman Brown split -half correlation coefficient the estimated value
was 0.81, and the Test- retest method, the estimated value was 0.80, Spearman
correlation for reliability of estimates, the estimated value was 0.83. Which revealed
that the measure has good reliability. The discriminating ability of the items by using
the Point Biserial Correlation Coefficient between the grades on the items and the
overall grade on the measure referred to the measure has a good ability to discriminate
between students who have different levels of attitudes toward English language the
values were ranged between 0.59 to 0.31 all these results were derived from the
exploratory sample.
In addition, the result of the study which derived from the main sample revealed
that the level of students' attitudes towards English language for post-basic education
students in Oman's northeastern govemorate was moderately positive, with an average
7.01. The results of the study also showed differences in students' average of attitudes
towards English according to the gender, for male students. There are also differences
attributed to the variable of math subject for the students who had chosen pure math
subject as well as differences attributed to attending training courses, which was
positively for students who attended training courses in English. In order to study the
differences of student's attitudes toward English according to parents' education
qualifications the One Way ANOVA where used, which pointed to statistically
significant differences in students' attitudes according to the father's and mother's level
of education, for a bachelor's qualification and above, beside that the mother's
qualification had a greater size effect than the fathers. In the light of the previous
findings, the study recommended several recommendations: to take advantage of the
measure which prepared in this study, by researchers because of its good psychometric
characteristics, also to take advantage of the study results, by taking actions that
improve students' attitudes towards English.
Keywords: Attitudes; Thurston Approach; Equal-appearing Intervals Methods, English
Language; Sultanate of Oman.
