A Scale Development Study: Validity and Reliability of the Educational Skills Scale

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement instrument towards the educational skills of instructors. This is a methodological study. The sample of the study consisted of 380 instructors who were employed at a university. During the scale development process, an item pool was created by reviewing the literature, content and construct validity and item reliability analyses were carried out. The data were collected by using a Personal Information Form and the Educational Skills Scale Draft Form. In the study, the item pool consisting of 86 items was rearranged in line with expert opinions and according to the results of preliminary implementation. For the Educational Skills Draft Scale with 58 items remaining, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient was 0.89 and the adequacy of the sample size was confirmed. According to the Bartlett’s test results (p<0.05) there was correlation among the items. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, factors as planning, implementation and assessment were obtained. The three factors of the scale were found to explain 42.32% of the total variance. The first factor explained 28.47%, the second factor explained 7.81%, and the third factor explained 6.02% of the total variance. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) showed that the factorial structure revealed by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was confirmed, and the factor loads varied between 0.44 and 0.79. For the 5-point Likert-type Educational Skills Draft Scale with 38 items after analyses, the Cronbach’s Alpha value was found 0.93. The Cronbach’s alpha values of three factors were 0.88 for the planning dimension, 0.84 for the implementation dimension and 0.87 for the assessment dimension. It was concluded that the scale that was developed is a valid and reliable measurement instrument in determining educational skills.

Keywords

• Educational skills instructor
• Reliability
• Scale
• Validity

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