Psychometric validation of the education and assessment of genetic literacy or the EAGL measure

Genetic literacy is an integral measure for examining society's interaction with genetics, but widely used "genetic literacy" measures lack both knowledge comprehension measures and psychometric validation. To address these issues, we validated the education and assessment of genetic literacy (EAGL) measure in 2,708 US English-speaking general public participants, using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In addition to standard subjective and objective knowledge subscales, our measure's distinct knowledge comprehension subscale focuses on autism as an example of a complex condition. Regression analyses showed a statistically significant interaction when looking at education and personal connection to autism in relation to knowledge comprehension (F = 3.68, p = 0.003). Separately, those in our sample with a connection to autism scored higher only on the subjective knowledge section (F = 19.52, p < 0.001), concurring with previous demonstrations of a subjective-objective knowledge gap in science literacy. We then explored geographic location as one potential factor in genetic literacy and found that, contrary to expectations, metropolitan vs. non-metropolitan status had no significant main effects on literacy levels. After the validation process, we have two multi-domain measures that accurately capture the construct of genetic literacy and are available for wide use: the 46-question EAGL-long, which has previously been tested with thousands of participants, and the validated 17-question EAGL-short. The instruments will allow researchers to accurately gauge the complex genetic literacy levels of any population they wish to survey, helping to create more targeted and productive genetic communication interventions and educational materials.