Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
(Wen Chei Chan, 2008; Vanderkloet, 2008; Chen, 2007; Lawrence, 2007; Lockie et al., 2004).
The questionnaire form is composed of two sections, the first of which contains general
information items; the second part contains items related to the attitudes towards organic
foods. The data was collected between April and May 2011.
A Likert type scale consisting of 59 statements was used to determine the perception of
organic foods. There were 59 statements in the scale, including both negative and positive
sets of sentences. The positive statements were scored as follows: “I strongly agree” (5), “I
agree” (4), “Undecided” (3), “I don't agree” (2), and “I strongly disagree” (1). The scoring for
the negative statements was exactly the opposite (statements no: 9, 17, 18, 23, 24, 26, 40, 44,
45, 47, 51, 52).
Whether the items in the questionnaire were able to measure the attitudes towards organic
foods or not was tested by using structural validity analysis. The analysis determined the
items that measured the repeating and different structures, and whether the items were
included in a sub-structure or not was determined by examining the values for item factor
loadings (Büyüköztürk, 2002).
Although loading values of 0.45 and above are recommended in the factor analysis, in
practice, there has been some cases in which a loading value of 0.30 was also acceptable as
the lowest loading value. In this study, too, the loading value of 0.30 or above for an item
was accepted as adequate. The items with higher values were selected, and those with lower
values were not included in the statistical analyses applied in the later stages of the study
(18 items were removed) (Kerlinger, 1973; Tabanchinck & Fidell, 1989).
For the reliability of the questionnaire, “Cronbach Alpha”, the internal consistency
coefficient is calculated, and the alpha value was found to be 0.93 (mean: 3.74, min: 3.13,
max: 4.21). Accordingly, it is agreed that the “Attitudes towards Organic Foods” scale was a
valid and reliable instrument.
The factor analysis conducted for the validity of the “attitudes towards organic foods” scale
results in six factors: (i) Positive statements regarding organic foods (factor loadings 0.37-
0.74); Negative statements regarding organic foods (factor loadings 0.53- 0.70); Statements
regarding organic food production (factor loadings 0.60-0.70), Purchasing organic foods
(factor loadings 0.54-0.68), Comparing organic foods with traditional foods (factor loadings
0.37-0.67), Organic foods and environment/chemical usage (factor loadings 0.49-0.73) (see
Appendix).
When all the statements were replied, the grades obtained from the 'Positive statements
regarding organic foods' part amounts to 60 points; the 'Negative statements regarding
organic foods' and 'Comparing organic foods with traditional foods' parts, 40 points; the
'Statements regarding organic food production' and 'Purchasing organic foods' parts, 20
points, and the 'Organic foods and environment/chemical usage' part, 25 points, sum total
of which is 205 points.
2.2 Statistical analyses
Data obtained as the result of the research were evaluated by the Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) software, by taking the “gender”, “department”, “grade” variables
into consideration. In evaluating the organic food attitudes grades, “Independent- samples T
test” for the gender variable, “One-way anova” analysis and “LSD test” for the other
variables have been applied. Frequencies, averages and standard deviations were calculated
(Kesici & Kocabaş, 1998).
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