The Development Of Critical Reading Self-Efficacy Perception Scale

The main objective of this study is to develop a scale for measuring the self-efficacy perception levels of teachers and pre-service teachers about critical reading. A study about developing a new scale was conducted by making use of resources about critical reading skill and self-efficacy perception. This new scale consisted of 58 items. The items of the scale were designed as fivefold likert type. The validity and reliability of the scale were tested with the data collected from 650 pre-service teachers studying at the first- second, third and fourth grades of various departments of Çukurova University Faculty of Education. The construct validity of the scale was revealed by factor analysis. So as to define the construct validity of the scale, the items the factor loads of which were below .40 were excluded and 41 items remained in the scale. In the scope of validity tests, the scale was reduced to three factors through exploratory factor analysis and the three-factor structure was tested by confirmatory factor analysis. The scale consists of three factors which are “evaluation, investigation-exploration and visual”. The loads of these factors range between .68 and .44; .68 and .45; 75 and .48, respectively; the cronbach alpha consistency coefficients were .69, .78 and .91, respectively while it was .91 for the whole scale. It was seen as a result of confirmatory factor analysis that the scale has good coherence values. Item analysis, Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficients and correlation coefficients between the items and sub-scales were calculated. The studies of validity and reliability showed that the scale has the necessary characteristics to be used.

Keywords

Critical reading, Self-efficacy perception, Scale development