Development of scale to measure perception of farm women about climate change

Abstract

Climate change is now one of the biggest environmental challenges faced by countries in the world. Studies on climate change reveal that women are more susceptible to climate change than men, due to the existing inequalities and socially structured roles. It was therefore considered important to know how women perceive climate change and what shapes their perception. This perception is important in mitigating adversities of changing climate. In order to study this construct, a scale was developed to measure the perception of farm women regarding climate change. by adopting the Likert's summated rating method. Based on the review of literature and discussion with the expert's, 61 statements were initially listed. In order to know the relevancy of these statements, relevancy weightage scores (RWS) were calculated. Statements having relevancy percentage of more than 70 that is mean relevancy weightage of more than 0.70 and mean relevancy score of more than 2 were selected for the item analysis. A total of 55 statements qualified for the Item analysis. All statements with ‘t’ values greater than 1.75 were included in the final scale. The final scale to measure the perception of farm women about climate change consisted of 29 statements. The 'r' value of the scale was found to be 0.98, which was significant at one per cent level, indicating high reliability. The scale developed was therefore found to be reliable and valid. The developed scale is relevant to Indian rural women and so this scale can be used by other researchers in the country to measure the perception of farm women about climate change.