School Children's Responses on a Semantic Differential over a 10-Year Span

Abstract

A semantic differential scale was administered to 208 school children when they were in the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades. Their perceptions towards two concepts were measured, Education (going to school) and Work (having a job). Each semantic differential scale had 15 adjective pairs and reflected the three underlying factors of Evaluative, Potency, and Activity. Because the study was conducted for 10 years (ages seven to 18), the changing cognitive developmental stages of the children were expected to influence factor analytic and reliability results. Confirmatory factor analysis, which forced the data into three factors, did not clearly identify the expected three factors, although more items loaded on the three factors with age. An exploratory factor analysis identified a trend across grades from six to four factors over time. Reliability also improved across age groups. Caution should be exercised when using the semantic differential with young children in investigations of abstract concepts.

Using a Modified Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Adolescents’ Workplace Safety and Health Knowledge, Perceptions, and Behavioral Intention: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

“…Thus, each scale consisted of a 5-point response option format for each of the measures. Although semantic differential scales are typical for assessing attitude, a dearth of evidence supports their use with children (Helwig and Avitable 2004). The study therefore used Likert-type items, an accepted and common approach to measure attitudes (DeVellis 2017).…”

The structure of semantic meaning: A developmental study

“…In a longitudinal study, Helwig and Avitable (2004) asked school children to rate two words ("education" and "work") using the "Semantic Differential" technique. They reported that the number of factors needed to explain the variance of their questionnaire data decreased with increasing age from six to four factors.…”

“…Some changes of “Semantic Differential” results as a function of age were reported in older studies using only a limited number of concepts (Di Vesta, 1966; Donahoe, 1961; Maltz, 1963). In a longitudinal investigation by Helwig and Avitable (2004) school children had to rate only two concepts, and the authors focus on the change of the number of factors obtained at different age.…”