Construction and Validation of Instrument to Assess the Multifaceted Potential of School Vegetable Gardens

Shalini; Sreedaya G S

doi:10.48165/IJEE.2026.623RT01

Authors

Jaganathan Rajasekaran Shalini J R
Gopinath Sarojini Sreedaya

https://doi.org/10.48165/IJEE.2026.623RT01

Keywords:

Multidimensional assessment, Reliability and validity, Scale development, School vegetable gardens, and Student perception.

Abstract

The study is focused on developing and standardizing a scale to assess the multifaceted potential of school vegetable gardens as perceived by students. This instrumentation was carried out in the year 2025.The summated rating technique as proposed by Likert (1932) and refined by Edwards (1957) was employed for the construction of the instrument. Initially, a comprehensive literature analysis, conversations with subject matter experts, and field-level observations pertaining to school gardening programs produced a pool of 75 statements. After editing using standard criteria, 66 relevant statements were retained. Of these, 55 items were chosen based on a relevancy score of more than 80%. After item assessment, a total of forty three statements with t- values above 2.306 at the 5% level of threshold were incorporated and subjected to reliability and validity tests. Then, Factor Analysis (Exploratory) was carried out to confirm the dimensional structure and establish convergent validity. The final scale consisted of 43 items grouped under five dimensions: Economic, Environmental, Social, Governance, and Health & Well-being. The confirmed scale proved higher internal consistency with a Cronbach’s value of 0.983 and satisfactory split-half reliability. Convergent validity was established by the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values outstanding the threshold for each dimension.

Author Biography

Gopinath Sarojini Sreedaya

Professor and Head, Centre of Agricultutral Innovations and Technology Transfer, College of Agriculture, Vellayani

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