Measures of public attitudes towards science: A scoping review

The role that attitudes towards science plays in science acceptance has received attention in recent years, yet little is known about the ways that public attitudes towards science are conceptualised and measured. To address this, our review sought to identify instruments developed to measure attitudes towards general science or the scientific method for use with adult populations that had been subjected to psychometric analyses. The review protocol was pre-registered and methodology adhered to the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines and PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. Title and abstract screening of 16,658 articles by two independent reviewers identified 783 articles for full-text screening, resulting in 31 articles (29 separate instruments) for inclusion. Psychometric properties were summarised; variations in conceptualisations of attitudes towards science and adherence to best-practice recommendations for scale development were identified. Overall, this research contributes to our ongoing understanding of attitudes towards science and the measurement of this important construct.