The Development of a Measure of State Epistemic Curiosity.

Abstract

The development of a theoretically-derived measure of state epistemic curiosity, the State Curiosity Scale (SCS), was described. Reliability and validity data was collected in two empirical studies with female undergraduate students. Alpha reliability coefficients of ,87 in Study I and .89 in Study II were found. Concurrent validity findings included a significant positive correlation between the SCS and the Ontario Test of Intrinsic Motivation (OTIM), a trait measure of specific curiosity, That is, Ss high in trait curiosity were found to have higher levels of state curiosity than Ss low in trait curiosity. Indirect evidence of the construct validity of the SCS were the findings of a significant negative correlation between state epistemic curiosity and state anxiety, and a significant positive correlation between state epistemic curiosity and performance in a ComputerAssisted Instruction (CAI) learning task.