Development of an instrument to measure the tobacco control advocacy knowledge of youth

The problem of this study was to develop a valid and reliable instrument to assess the tobacco control advocacy knowledge level of high school students enrolled in the Busting Big Tobacco (BBT) program. The steps taken to examine this problem include: created a table of specifications, created the initial instrument, selected a jury of experts, a qualitative assessment by jurors, created the revised instrument, a quantitative review by jurors, revised the instrument, conducted a modified pilot test of the instrument using university students, and created the final 23 item instrument.The final instrument was administered to a group of Missouri high school students on two separate occasions a week apart. Out of the total 77 students that participated, 28 instruments were matched for data analysis. Two instrument items fell below a significant content validity ratio of .62. The mean item difficulty for the first and second administration of the final instrument was .53 and .49 respectively. The test-retest reliability was .6756 and the internal consistency reliability. 5696 for the first administration and .4815 for the second. Recommendations included: improving the confidentiality code, restructuring items into subscales, and give to BBT participants.Department of Physiology and Health ScienceThesis (M.S.