Validation of an Instrument to Evaluate the Dissemination, Outreach, and Use of Scientific Communication Products for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

With a tradition spanning six decades, in North America, the practice of scientific communication has been seen as a direct responsibility of academia, despite the scarcity of models that aim to measure its impact. This article develops a quantitative approach to present the design and validation of an instrument to assess the academic practice of scientific communication, which incorporates factors of dissemination, outreach, and teaching practice in the use of scientific communicative products for teaching and learning. The instrument was integrated into seven scales and 30 indicators over a sample of 233 educators from 13 universities located in the United States of America, Canada, and primarily, Mexico. The reliability results were consistent, showing more than acceptable coefficients. Correlation analyses reveal that the dimensions of the academic practice of scientific communication are associated in a directly positive and significant way ranging from moderate to strong.