Measuring Adolescent Attitudes toward Classroom Incivility: Exploring Differences Between Intentional and Unintentional Incivility

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale that measures adolescents' attitudes toward classroom incivility and determine whether items would reveal subscales. A sample of 549 adolescents between ages 11 and 18 (53.1% boys; M[subscript age] = 13.90, SD = 1.41) completed items written to measure attitudes toward classroom incivility. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used on one half of the randomly split sample and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the remainder. Results from both analyses suggested that two factors representing unintentional and intentional incivility might be the best factor solution. In addition, evidence for concurrent validity was found in correlations with four additional scales. Results suggest that attitudes toward classroom incivility are heterogeneous and that adolescence may be an important developmental period to address this construct. Future studies should continue psychometrically developing this scale and exploring this measure with additional antisocial beliefs and behaviors.