Development of Distance Education Attitude Scale for Teachers: A Study of Validity and Reliability

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the Distance Education Attitude Scale for Teachers, which was developed to reveal teachers’ attitudes towards distance education during the COVID-19 outbreak. Statistical analyses were performed on 458 of the collected forms. The study group was randomly divided into two and the EFA process was conducted with 205 participants and the CFA process with 253 participants. KMO and Bartlett tests were performed to determine the suitability of the data for EFA. The KMO value was 0.0885 and the Bartlett test was statistically significant (χ2=3141, df=703, p<0.001). EFA results show that the DEASFT structure consists of 21 items and two factors, and these factors are named as “Benefits of Distance Education” and “Limitations of Distance Education”. CFA was applied on the data of 253 different people to the factor structures obtained as a result of AFA Analyses. One item was dropped from the scale because p values (0.178) is bigger than 0.05. According to fit indices (χ²/df < 1.5, CFI=0.953 > 0.9, TLI=0.942 > 0.9, SRMR=0.0735 < 0.8, RMSEA=0.0427 < 0.05), the scale is validated. The final version of scale has two factors and 20 items. Cronbach Alpha and composite reliability coefficients were calculated for reliability. For factor 1 Cronbach α=0.847 and McDonald’s ω=0.836. For factor 2 Cronbach α=0.815 and McDonald’s ω=0.845. The results of the analysis show that the scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool for determining teachers’ attitudes towards distance education.