Measuring perceptions of innovation adoption: the diffusion of a federal drug prevention policy.
The purpose of this paper is to describe the testing of a new scale to assess the perceived attributes of a federal drug prevention policy. The 17-item scale was administered to 107 Safe and Drug Free Schools (SDFS) coordinators in 12 states as a part of a larger investigation examining the diffusion of a federal drug prevention policy. In developing this scale, the authors drew from theory, previously validated measures, expert review and pre-testing with SDFS coordinators. Factor analysis revealed three underlying constructs representing relative advantage/compatibility, complexity and observability. The constructs found were internally consistent with a Cronbach's alpha ranging from a high of 0.89 for relative advantage/compatibility to a low of 0.71 for observability. Each of these constructs was correlated with a district's adoption of the policy in predictable ways. The construct of relative advantage/compatibility appears to be especially useful in assessing policy adoption. This scale was developed to assess a specific innovation; however, we believe that it can be easily adapted to understand the adoption of other health education interventions.
Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599, USA.
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D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014481:United States