Developing a Scale to Examine Adolescents’ Sense of Respect Toward the Elderly

Abstract

We developed a Sense of Respect towards the Elderly among Adolescents Scale extending the work of the Filial Piety Scale (TOYOSHIMA et al. 2011) and the Social Norm Scale (GALLOIS et al. 1999). The refining and further development of scales to measure and understand the feelings of those participating is important in facilitating and fostering co-operative educational opportunities in intergenerational programs. We used a self-administered survey with 190 students (88 boys and 102 girls) registered at a junior high school in Yokohama, and performed factor analysis using Promax rotation, adopting 18 items consisting of 2 factors. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was .80 for the whole scale. The first sub-scale showed .85 in Respectful Attitudes Toward the Elderly and the second sub-scale showed .64 in Respectful Actions Toward the Elderly. Additionally, overall reliability, content validity and criterion-referenced validity were confirmed. We argue that the new scale we developed can be used/will be useful in future intergenerational research projects.