Abstract

This research aims to develop a measure of motivation towards learning according to the partial credit model of the Item Response Theory (IRT) which is a model of the polytomous IRT. It is a development of the one-parameter Rasch model, which deals with multi-step questionnaires. To achieve the goal of the research, the scale of motivation towards learning was used, which was prepared by Abdel Wahab (2014) based on Doqa et al. (2011). It was presented to 8 arbitrators with expertise in the industy, and after taking into consideration their opinions regarding amendments and deletion of some items, the scale became in its final form of (25) items distributed over four dimensions: perseverance and seriousness, value and benefit of learning, learner responsibility, and self-efficacy. The scale was applied to a random cluster sample consisting of (541) female students in the secondary level in Tabuk, and by using the EasyEstimation software, the value of the internal and external matching of items and responses of individuals was extracted. The results indicated that the scale fulfilled the assumptions of the modern theory, and that all (25) items matched the partial credit model, meaning, i.e, the value of the external or internal matching statistic corresponding to the estimates of the difficulty parameters for these items falls within the appropriate matching limits (0.5 - 1.5), and non-conformance (17) female students from the study sample. That is, the value of the external or internal matching statistic corresponding to the estimates of the abilities of these students is outside the matching limits (0.50-1.5). The reliability coefficient of individuals reached (0.82) and the reliability coefficient of the items reached (0.98). It was ascertained that the scale has multiple aspects of validity. Therefore, the research made recommendations, most notably: to benefit from the developed scale in classifying female students according to their motivation to learn and implementing mentoring and remedial programs by those in charge of the educational process in public education.