Toward making the invisible visible using a scale: prospective teachers' thoughts and affective reactions to feedback

Abstract

This paper presents the development and initial validation of a feedback scale which measures the thoughts and affective reactions of prospective teachers concerning feedback on their teaching experiences. To reach this goal, data from 512 prospective teachers were used to test the internal consistency, exploratory and confirmative factor structure. While exploratory factor analysis was conducted on a random split-half sample of the data to examine the factor structure of the feedback scale items, confirmative factor analysis was conducted in the holdout sample. As a result of these analyses, it has been determined that the scale showed good validity and it has a structure composed of two factors; professional development and anxiety. Also, the reliability of these sub-factors of scale scores was found to be highly reliable. Overall, results suggest that this scale is a valid measurement that should reveal the viewpoints of prospective teachers regarding feedback in the form of observable behaviours for future research.