Pupil Attitude Questionnaire

Abstract

The Pupil Attitude Questionnaire (PAQ) is a 60-item psychological instrument developed by H. Kolesar in 1967 to measure the extent of student alienation within the organizational structure of high schools. The scale is theoretically grounded in Melvin Seeman’s (1959) multidimensional framework of alienation, which segments the construct into five distinct subscales: powerlessness, self-estrangement, normlessness, meaninglessness, and isolation. Initial validation studies, conducted on high school students in Alberta, Canada, demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including a clear five-factor structure confirmed through factor analysis, and acceptable test-retest reliability.

The PAQ provides researchers and educational administrators with a structured methodology for assessing student perceptions regarding their control over school life, the relevance of their studies, adherence to school norms, and their overall sense of belonging and self-fulfillment within the educational environment.

Keywords

Pupil Attitude Questionnaire, PAQ, student attitude, alienation, powerlessness, normlessness, meaninglessness, self-estrangement, isolation, high school, psychological scale, educational measurement.

Authors

H. Kolesar

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Pupil Attitude Questionnaire (PAQ) is to quantify the degree of alienation experienced by high school students concerning their educational environment and the bureaucratic organization of the school. The scale aims to translate the theoretical concepts of alienation, as developed by Seeman, into an empirical measure applicable specifically to the student population.

By measuring five distinct facets of alienation, the PAQ allows for a nuanced assessment of student detachment. This detailed analysis is crucial for researchers and educators seeking to identify specific areas where the student-school relationship is strained, such as student feelings of lack of control or the perceived irrelevance of curriculum content.

Construct

The underlying psychological construct measured by the PAQ is Student Alienation, conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon consisting of five interrelated yet distinct components:

• Powerlessness: This subscale measures the student’s belief that they lack personal control over their academic and administrative circumstances within the school system, feeling that the school is run by others with little input from pupils.
• Meaninglessness: This dimension assesses the student’s sense of inability to connect current school activities to predictable future outcomes, or a general lack of understanding regarding the goals and processes of the school.
• Normlessness: This factor captures the student’s belief that socially unapproved behaviors, such as cheating or lying, are necessary or required means to achieve valued school goals (e.g., good grades or success).
• Isolation: This component identifies students who reject or do not personally accept the primary goals, values, or interests promoted by the school, leading to social or psychological detachment.
• Self-Estrangement: This measures the degree to which a student is unable to find school activities that are intrinsically motivating or self-rewarding, resulting in participation driven primarily by external pressures or rewards.

Validity

Four distinct types of validity were established during the development and refinement of the Pupil Attitude Questionnaire, ensuring its appropriateness for measuring student alienation.

Content Validity was established by ensuring the initial pool of items was large and representative, encompassing various aspects of the student’s relationship with the school environment. Face Validity was confirmed by utilizing a panel of 14 expert judges who determined that the instrument appeared, on the surface, to measure the intended construct of student alienation.

Construct Validity was supported by correlating student PAQ scores with external measures, specifically teacher ratings of the students. The resulting correlations were positive and statistically significant (p < 0.001), indicating that students who scored high on alienation were rated accordingly by their teachers. Finally, Factorial Validity was confirmed through multiple factor analyses, which successfully extracted a clean five-factor solution that aligned precisely with the theoretical framework derived from Seeman’s dimensions.

Reliability

The stability of the PAQ was assessed using the test-retest reliability method. The entire 60-item questionnaire was administered twice to a sample of 92 high school students over a one-week interval. The resulting reliability coefficient for the total scale score was calculated to be 0.79. This value indicates a satisfactory level of temporal stability for the instrument over a short assessment period.

Factor Analysis

The psychometric evaluation of the PAQ confirmed a robust five-factor structure, aligning perfectly with the five theoretical dimensions of alienation proposed by Seeman. The final 60 items were distributed across these five factors as follows:

• Powerlessness: 12 items (5, 7, 8, 13, 28, 29, 30, 34, 41, 51, 53, 59).
• Self-Estrangement: 12 items (10, 12, 16, 21, 26, 31, 32, 36, 40, 43, 44, 54).
• Normlessness: 14 items (1, 2, 3, 11, 15, 18, 24, 27, 35, 42, 52, 56, 57, 58).
• Meaninglessness: 12 items (6, 14, 17, 19, 33, 37, 38, 39, 45, 46, 47, 60).
• Isolation: 10 items (4, 9, 20, 22, 23, 25, 48, 49, 50, 55).

Analysis of the inter-scale relationships showed that scores on each of the five subscales correlated positively and significantly with the overall total alienation score. Furthermore, correlations between the five subscales themselves were generally positive and significant, supporting the notion that they measure related aspects of a single overarching construct, with the exception of the correlation between the Meaninglessness and Isolation subscales, which was non-significant.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychological Questionnaire / Attitude Scale

Format: The PAQ consists of 60 self-report items utilizing a 5-point Likert-type response scale (Strongly Agree = 5; Agree = 4; Undecided = 3; Disagree = 2; Strongly Disagree = 1).

Language Available: English (original development).

Population Group: Students.

Age Group: High School Students (Adolescents).

Population Details: Developed based on a pilot sample of 163 high school students. The revised PAQ was administered to a large normative sample of approximately 1,764 students across 20 high schools in Alberta, Canada.

Test Methodology: Self-administered paper-and-pencil inventory. Scoring involves standard 5-point scaling, but with specific reversals for 18 items (4, 6, 13, 15, 20, 23, 26, 28, 29, 34, 36, 44, 45, 46, 51, 53, 54, and 59). Additionally, 9 items on the meaninglessness scale (14, 17, 19, 33, 37, 38, 39, 47, and 60) utilize a specific non-linear weighted scoring scheme: SA = 1, A = 3, U = 5, D = 3, SD = 1.

Keywords

Educational psychology, student behavior, school climate, attitude measurement, powerlessness, self-report instrument, Kolesar 1967, Seeman’s dimensions, academic engagement, high school bureaucracy.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A

Correspondence Address: H. Kolesar, PhD Dissertation (1967), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Pupil Attitude Questionnaire was developed and validated in 1967 as part of a doctoral dissertation. Current permissions, copyright status, and applicable fees for the scale are not detailed in the original documentation and would require direct consultation with the University of Alberta or the author’s estate for contemporary academic or commercial use.

Test Year: 1967 (Initial development and validation).

Reference’s

• Kolesar, H. (1967). An empirical study of client alienation in the bureaucratic organization. PhD dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
• Rafalides, M., and Hoy, W. K. (1971). Student sense of alienation and pupil control orientation of high schools. High School Journal 55:101–11.
• Seeman, M. (1959). On the meaning of alienation. American Sociological Review, 24(6), 783–791.

Items of the Pupil Attitude Questionnaire

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. White lies are justified when they help to avoid punishment.
2. It is a good policy to tell teachers only what they want to hear.
3. In this school, success is to be aimed for by any means that pupils can devise.
4. It is most important that right always be achieved even if it requires tremendous effort.
5. Schools are run by others and there is little that pupils can do about it.
6. I think that I can now predict what I can achieve in an occupation after graduation.
7. The school experiences of pupils are controlled by plans devised by others.
8. There really isn’t much use complaining to the teachers about the school because it is impossible to influence them anyway.
9. The reason I endure some unpleasant things now is because I feel that it will benefit me later on.
10. Pupils should have most of their time free from study.
11. Sometimes it is necessary to make promises to school authorities which you don’t intend to keep.
12. In order to get ahead in this school pupils are almost forced to do some things which are not right.
13. Pupils often are given the opportunity to express their ideas about how the school ought to be run.
14. It is possible on the basis of the level of my present school achievement, to predict with a high degree of accuracy, the level of achievement I can expect in adulthood.
15. It is very desirable that pupils learn to be good citizens.
16. I think my teachers would have given me the same marks on the last report card no matter how well I really had done.
17. My school experiences will help me to become a good citizen.
18. It doesn’t matter too much if what I am doing is right or wrong as long as it works.
19. At school we learn habits and attitudes which will guide us in the achievement of a good life.
20. I know that I will complete my high school education.
21. These days a pupil doesn’t really know who he can count on.
22. I often worry about what my teachers think of me.
23. Pupils must try to develop an interest in their school subjects even when the content is dull.
24. It is more important to achieve enjoyment and personal satisfaction than to sacrifice yourself for others.
25. I study hard in school mainly because I want to get good grades.
26. I often read and study in my courses beyond what is required by my teachers.
27. Really, a pupil has done wrong only if he gets caught.
28. The school principal is really interested in all pupils in this school.
29. In discipline cases the pupil’s explanation of the circumstances is carefully weighed by the school authorities before punishment is decided upon.
30. The teachers will not listen to pupil complaints about unfair school rules.
31. Usually, I would rather play hooky than come to school.
32. I would rather go to work now than go to school, but more education now will help me to get a better job later.
33. What I am doing at school will assist me to do what I want when I graduate.
34. Pupils have adequate opportunities to protect themselves when their interests conflict with the interests of those who run the school.
35. Copying parts of essays from books is justified if this results in good marks on the essays.
36. I get more satisfaction from doing an assignment well than from the marks which I receive on the assignment.
37. What we do at school will help us to affect the world in which we live.
38. Participation in student government activities will help me in anything I try to do in the future.
39. As a result of my school experiences I know what I will do when I graduate.
40. No matter how I try I don’t seem to understand the content of my courses very well.
41. In this school the teachers are the rulers and the pupils are the slaves.
42. It is unlikely that in this school the pupils will achieve the goals in which they believe.
43. If homework assignments were not required, I would seldom do homework.
44. I like to do extra problems in mathematics for fun.
45. I understand how decisions are made regarding what we are to study in this school.
46. My school studies will help me to make predictions about the kind of world in which I will live in the future.
47. My present school studies will help me to understand others.
48. Pupils must be very careful to make the best possible impression with their teachers.
49. If I had my way, I’d close all schools.
50. Having lots of friends is more important than is getting ahead in school.
51. In this school pupils can complain to the principal and be given a fair hearing.
52. Copying another pupil’s homework is justified if he agrees to let you do it.
53. Pupil’s ideas about how the school should be run are often adopted in this school.
54. I find it easy to please my teachers.
55. I want to finish high school.
56. It is necessary to misbehave at school if you’re going to have any fun.
57. Giving an answer to someone else during an examination is not really cheating.
58. Pupils must take advantage of every opportunity, fair or unfair, because good opportunities occur very infrequently at this school.
59. Pupils in this school are given considerable freedom in planning their own programs to meet their future needs.
60. Participation in student government activities will assist me to become a good citizen.