An Evaluation of Educational Website Designs from the Perspective of Visual Perception Theories: A Study on Scale Development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale which could be used to evaluate instructional website designs from the perspective of visual perception theories. For this purpose, a scale of 50 items was developed based on the literature and expert opinions. Visual perception theories such as Gestalt Theory, Brunswick’s Probabilistic Functionalism, Neuropsychological Theory, Theory of Direct Perception and Ecological Optics, Constructivist Visual Perception Theory and Computational Approach to Visual Perception provided a basis for the development of scale items; also a focus group discussion was employed. 196 students from the Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) Department filled the scale. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied along with the principal component method on data. Following the factor analysis, a single factor scale was developed. The loading of each item in the scale was found to be over .30. The internal consistency coefficient of the overall scale was high (α=.961). The corrected item-total correlation coefficient of the items was .301 and over. Through factor analysis, it was revealed that the scale had a single-factor structure with an explained variance of 35%. At the end of the study, several recommendations were presented for future studies.

Keywords

• Visual Perception, Scale development, Instructional website, Factor analysis

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