An Analysis of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale within the Malaysian Context using the Rasch Measurement Model

Abstract

Many concerns have been raised about the psychometric properties of instruments when used in different culture. Studies show that adaptation of instrument within a particular context sometimes has different meaning since a particular psychology construct is considered cultural specific. The purpose of the present study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) within the Malaysian educational context A total of 191 Malaysian in-service and 122 pre-service teachers participated in the study. A Rasch Measurement Model analysis is used to examine the psychometric properties of the scale, particularly the reliability and construct validity. Analyses showed somewhat similar variability with the in-service group demonstrated wider spread of item difficulty compared to the pre-service teachers. One important observation was that both group endorsed different set of items. Consistency of both item difficulty and teachers’ efficacy were high and threats to construct validity in terms of construct irrelevant-variance and construct under-representation were minimum. One worrying finding, however, was that the differential item function (DIF) analysis showed that 13 items (54.17%) behaved significantly different across groups of teachers. Even though several items shown to behave differently across both group of teachers, overall results are encouraging and seem to support the suitability of the TSES to assess teachers’ sense of efficacy within the Malaysian educational context.