Reliability And Validity Study Of An Attitude Scale of Teaching Profession
Öz
The aim of this study was to develop an attitude scale for professional attitude, an important factor in studying organizational behavior in educational organizations. The scale was developed to determine the attitudes of the university students, pursuing a degree in Educational faculty, towards teaching profession. It is a Likert-type scale yielding one factor. A trial scale was initially formed, and was applied to 449 students coming from 11 different teaching programs. According to the Principal Components Analysis, performed for the Construct Validity of the scale, factor loadings of the first factor which was made up of 34 items were varied between .74 and .41, and explained the 30% of the varience. Having examined the total score of the test, and the item-test correlations for each item, the item-test correlation was found to be varying between .42 and .74. The criterion validity value of the scale was found as .89. For the test-retest reliability of the scale, it was given to 116 subjects twice in a 4-week interval, and the correlation between these two test applications was .72. The internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) of the scale was .93. Summary The purpose of this research was to develop an attitude scale about vocational attitude which is an important factor in studying organizational behavior in educational settings. The scale was developed in order to measure the attitudes of the students who were already attending a teaching program in university toward teaching profession. Teaching is a term that constitutes a position in educational organizations and a set of behaviors required by the position, and describes the status, duties and relations of this position. When a study is done about being a teacher and teaching profession in regard to organizational behaviors, essentially organizational behaviors of an employee in an educational setting is being searched. As the variables that define teacher's acts in classroom is taken into consideration in the scope of organizational behavior, it would be seen that one of the factors that determine teacher's acts is the aspects of his/her attitudes toward teaching. The concept of attitude is one of the basic topics in studying organizational behavior, because behavior is very much related to attitude. As cited in Kağıtçıbaşı (1999), there are some studies which indicate that attitude shapes behavior by interacting with situational factors (La Piere, 1934; Kunter, Wilkins and Yarrow, 1952). In some cases, some very powerful attitudes may produce same behaviors via overcoming situational obstacles. Among the factors that influence the relationship between attitude and behavior are time, power of an attitude, accessibility of an attitude, and consciousness (Kağıtçıbaşı, 1999). Having information about the attitude of a person toward an object will enable us to predict the likelihood behavior of this person to this specific object. This is very important when it comes to practice. In vocational education that is being served in order to prepare individuals about various occupations, one of the aims is to enable individuals who chose an occupation, and are being educated about this specific occupation to possess knowledge, emotion, and skills in order to perform behaviors that are specific to this occupation. In another word, vocational education is given to individuals to determine their behaviors in future. In the same way, teacher education programs aim to furnish candidate teachers with field knowledge, emotions, and skills, so as their professional behaviors would be more effective. For the individuals who are supposed to be teaching, having a positive attitude toward teaching profession is one of the conditions in meeting the requirements of this profession. Thus, identifying the attitudes of the students, pursuing a degree in teaching programs may give an idea what kinds of attitudes should be owned by them in their education. There are some studies in the literature which examined the attitudes toward teaching profession according to some variables. One of them, named as “the attitudes of the students of educational faculty toward teaching profession” was done by Oral (2004) in which a scale that aimed to determine the attitudes toward teaching profession was used, developed by Semerci and Semerci (1999). According to the results of the study, the attitudes of the students of educational faculty about teaching profession differed significantly in terms of gender, preference rank of the program pursued, and the reason for preferring a teaching program (Oral, 2004) Therefore, another study, named as “the relationship between the attitudes about teaching profession, and personality characteristics” was done by Şenel and her friends (2004). In order to determine the attitudes about teaching profession, an attitude scale about teaching profession, developed by Erkuş, Sanlı and Güven (2000), was used in the study. The results of the study showed that there was a significant positive correlation between some personality characteristics such as trusting others, accepting help, being supportive, tolerant, cautious, stable, determined, and social and the attitudes toward teaching profession (Şenel and others, 2004). An another study about the attitudes toward teaching profession, named as “the attitudes of the students of the English Teaching Program in Open Faculty and the English Teaching Programs in Educational Faculties and their self-perceptions about vocational competency”, was done by Çakır (2005) in which an attitude scale, developed by Erkuş, Sanlı and Güven (2000) was used. According to the results, there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of both variables (Çakır, 2005). Method In the process of the development of the scale, following procedures were followed: A total of 110 university students who were attending either an undergraduate or a graduate program in Educational Faculty in İnönü University were asked to write an essay about their thoughts and feelings related to teaching profession. After reviewing the essays, scanning the literature, and asking opinions of the professionals in the field, a trial scale composed of 48-item was formed. This trial scale was applied to 449 students coming from 11 different teaching programs in Educational Faculty and chosen by using an appropriate sampling method at the onset of the Spring term of 2004 in İnönü University. Construct Validity of the Scale In order to display the construct validity of the scale, a factor analysis was performed over 48 items. According to the results of the principal components analysis, the items were grouped in three factors. Having eliminated the items in the first factor that had a factor load under .40, analysis was repeated. Eventually 34 items that had a factor load between .41 and .74 were determined as the items of the scale. The item-test correlation for each item varied between .43 and .75. These correlations indicate that the items of the scale measure the same construct. To determine the criterion validity of the scale, an attitude scale about teaching profession developed by Erkuş, Sanlı, Güven, and Bağlı (2000) was used as an equivalent test. The items of these two scales were gathered in the same form and that form was answered by 140 students of Educational faculty in Fall term of 2005. The correlation between these two scales was computed by using Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient method. The correlation between two scales was found as .89. Reliability Studies To prove the reliability of the scale, test-retest reliability coefficient and internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) were computed. For this purpose, the scale was given to 116 students of Educational faculty in İnönü University at two different times in 4-week interval in spring term of 2004. The correlation between these two applications was .72. The scale was applied to 449 students in the Educational Faculty in the same term to compute the internal consistency coefficient. It was found as .93. The results of the validity and reliability studies of the scale revealed that the scale, developed to measure the attitudes of the students of Educational faculty about teaching as a profession, possesses good psychometric properties and sufficient reliability and validity values. Conclusion Predicting behaviors of individuals has been gaining more importance today than it was in the past in various fields such as politics, economics, marketing, organizational management, school management, teacher-student relationship and so on. Hence, some attempts have being made about predicting behaviors in order to determine the strategies that shall be applied to aforementioned fields. One of the important factors in determining what behaviors individuals are going to perform is getting information about their attitudes toward related topic or situation. When discussed in term of organizational behavior, having information about the attitudes of an individual in an organization about his/her occupation is going to be beneficial in selecting organizational strategies. Knowing what kinds of attitudes teacher candidates who are going to be working in educational settings have toward their occupations shall guide us about what kind of education should be given to them in their education. For that reason, the purpose of this research was to develop an attitude scale in order to determine the attitudes of the students of educational faculty. Psychometric properties of the scale indicate that it is a reliable and valid scale. As a final word, this scale can be used in future in studies that examine what kinds of variables determine the attitudes of the students of educational faculty about teaching profession, and try to determine their attitudes about teaching profession.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Öğretmenlik Mesleğine Yönelik Tutum Ölçeğinin Geçerlik ve Güvenirlik Çalışması
Öz
Bu çalışmada eğitim örgütlerindeki örgütsel davranışın incelenmesinde önemli bir boyut olan mesleki tutum konusuna ilişkin bir tutum ölçeği geliştirmek amaçlanmıştır. Geliştirilen bu ölçek öğretmenlik programlarında öğrenim görmekte olan öğrencilerin Öğretmenlik mesleğine yönelik tutumunu belirlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Ölçek tek boyutlu likert tipi bir tutum ölçeğidir. Ölçeğin denemelik formu 11 farklı öğretmenlik programında öğrenim görmekte olan 449 öğrenciye uygulanmıştır. Ölçeğin yapı geçerliliğine ilişkin olarak yapılan temel bileşenler analizi sonucunda 34 maddenin yer aldığı birinci faktörde faktör yükü değerlerinin .74 ile .41 arasında değiştiği ve faktörün toplam varyansın %30'unu açıkladığı görülmüştür. Ölçeğin toplam puanı ile her bir maddenin madde test korelasyonuna bakılmış ve madde test korelasyon değerlerinin .74 ile .42 arasında değişkenlik gösterdiği bulunmuştur.Ölçeğin ölçüt ölçek geçerliliği .89'dur. Ölçeğin güvenirliğine ilişkin olarak 116 eğitim fakültesi öğrencisine 4 hafta ara ile iki kez uygulanması sonucu elde edilen puanların kararlılığına ilişkin güvenirlik katsayısı .72 bulunmuştur. Ölçeğin iç tutarlılık katsayısı (Cronbah Alpha) .93'dür.
Anahtar Kelimeler
