Distance Education Attitudes (DEAS) During Covid-19 Crisis: Factor Structure, Reliability and Construct Validity of the Brief DEA Scale in Greek-Speaking SEND Teachers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties (factor structure, reliability and construct validity) of the Brief Distance Education Attitudes (DEA) scale. Four hundred twenty-two SEND teachers filled out socio-demographic data forms and the DEAS. Factors were extracted by EFA (Principal Components Analysis) and confirmed by Analysis of Moment Structures. No floor-ceiling effects were observed. No significant differences of skewness and kurtosis were observed between the two Domains. All goodness of fit indices generated by CFA were found satisfactory (TLI = 0.962 > 0.95, RMSEA = .035 < 0.08, CFI = 0.943 ≥ 0.90, χ2(34) = 57.93, p = .000 and SRMR = 0.034 < 0.08). Cronbach’s alpha value formed at α = .764. SEND teachers’ attitudes towards Efficacy in Distance Education and Difficulties Related to Distance Education are considered as significant factors for the implementation of distance education during COVID-19 crisis. Consequently, universities, education technology corporations and policy makers should take consideration of these factors so as to train SEND teachers’ and support emergency remote-teaching scenarios.