Evaluating the psychometric properties of a Malay version of Bostick's (1992) Library Anxiety scale

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the components of library anxiety using a Malay version of Bostick's (1992) Library Anxiety Scale (LAS) and to examine the effects of demographic variables such as gender, native language, year of study, prior exposure to library services and medium of instruction on the variation in the library anxiety construct. A 46-item Malay version of Bostick's (1992) Library Anxiety Scale (LAS) was tested among 130 medical students drawn randomly from a population of 423 students pursuing their Bachelor of Medicine or Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree. The findings revealed a 3-factor solution which corresponded to the five factors as found by Bostick's (1992) pioneering psychometric measure of library anxiety. The sub-scales of library anxiety were termed barriers with staff, affective barriers and comfort with library technology. The factor barriers with staff explained 19.76% of the variance in the library construct, followed by affective barriers factor explaining 11.55% of the variance and a third factor comfort with library technology explained 10.282% of the variance. The overall scale as well as each of the three sub-scales was submitted to an internal reliability assessment resulting in a satisfactory Cronbach's internal reliability coefficient alpha. Despite the fewer number of sub-scales that were yielded by the Malay version of Bostick's (1992) Library Anxiety Scale (LAS), the translated scale has been shown to be a valid and reliable instrument.

Effect of Conflict Management Styles on Organizational Commitment of University Teachers

“…Conflict management techniques should be developed to increase organizational performance and learning as well as to meet the requirements and expectations of all participants. Karim and Noor (2006) are credited with developing the conflict theory, which contends that societal conflict is caused by competition for limited resources. The theory views all social events through the prism that conflict is an instinctive human need.…”

Assessing the Job Engagement and Organizational Commitment of Bedside Care Nurses

“…Continuance commitment was measured by the next six questions, and all these questions were worded positively. The normative commitment was measured by the last six questions, where five questions were worded positively and only one were worded negatively [19]. Previous studies supported the scale's convergent and discriminant validity, internal reliability.…”

“…In this study Cronbach's Alpha was 0.81. This scale was used previously in the nursing population to assess the relationship between organizational commitment and intention to leave among nurses [19].…”

Religious Commitment, Social Support and Life Satisfaction

“…This scale has been used by many researchers to predict important employee outcomes such as turnover, job performance, absenteeism and tardiness (Meyer et al, 2002). Many studies have supported the use of this scale as appropriate and useful (Karim & Noor, 2006;Meyer & Allen, 1997). According to Buckley (200l), Meyer and Allen's questionnaire is adopted for a study amongst MBA graduates as it is widely employed and the validity and reliability is evident from the United Kingdom, United States and other international samples.…”