Adaptation and Validation of Aricak’s Professional Self- Esteem Scale for use in the Pakistani Context

Abstract

One of the characteristics of teachers having great bearing upon students’ learning is their professional self- esteem. Various instruments are available for measuring general self-esteem and professional self-esteem of teachers. For the present study it was deemed appropriate to use a Turkish professional self-esteem scale developed by Aricak (1999). However, before conducting the actual study, it was decided to check the construct validity of the Aricak scale and to see how the instrument behaves in the Pakistani context. This instrument is a Likert type (five points) scale having originally 30 items with 14 positive and 16 negative statements. Aricak (1999) reported a Cronbach Alpha coefficient 0.93 (n=152) and test-retest reliability coefficient 0.90 (n=92, p<01) of the scale. However, the first administration of the original English version of the scale in Pakistan resulted in 0.84 reliability of the scale, which was considered less than satisfactory. Two measures were taken to adapt the Aricak scale and to improve its validity and reliability to reflect and suit the local values. Firstly, the scale was translated into Urdu, the national language of Pakistan in order to increase its comprehensibility, resulting in the improvement of the reliability of the Urdu version of the scale with its original 30 items to 0.89. At the second stage, seven more items (4 positive and 3 negative) were added to the scale. Reliability of the revised scale with 37 items was found to be 0.93. The paper also describes that unlike the original scale having three factors, 37 items of the revised and adapted scale loaded on five factors.