A Confirmatory Factor Analysis on Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale for In-Service Teachers in Malaysia

Abstract

This study presents the construct-related evidence of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) developed by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) for in-service teachers in the Malaysian context. The under-researched validation of the TSES in the local context warranted an investigation into unrevealing the scale's psychometric properties. Thus, this cross-sectional study sought to determine the factor structure of the scale where factor loadings of each efficacy source contribution were determined. The 24-item scale, which drew on its sources from student engagement, instructional strategies, and, classroom management was explored through a confirmatory factor analysis method. The analysis demonstrated that a 9-item scale of the three-factor structure model well fitted the data of the local setting. The study recommends improvement on the items so that they could better represent the underlying constructs to match the culture within a different educational setting. This implicates the use of the scale in measuring teacher efficacy for in-service teachers in Malaysia as it was empirically proven to have factor stability.

Revalidation of Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale using Ghanaian in‐service teachers: Multidimensional item response theory with factor analyses

“…(3) teachers at different levels of education (i.e., basic, secondary) were merged for the validation. These characteristics of the sample can interact to provide a higher factor dimension (see Apablaza & Lira, 2016;Johar & Badrasawi, 2009;Pintus et al, 2021;Tsigilis et al, 2007).…”

“…For studies that identified four‐ and five‐factor structures, three observations were made concerning the sample: (1) the teachers sampled had over 10 years of teaching experience; (2) the individuals sampled for the study were enrolled on innovative programs, which sought to train them for specialized skills; (3) teachers at different levels of education (i.e., basic, secondary) were merged for the validation. These characteristics of the sample can interact to provide a higher factor dimension (see Apablaza & Lira, 2016; Johar & Badrasawi, 2009; Pintus et al, 2021; Tsigilis et al, 2007).…”

“…Similar results were reported in Italy (Pintus et al, 2021), the United States (Fives & Buehl, 2009), Greece (Tsigilis et al, 2010), Poland (Koniewski, 2019), Serbia (Ninkovic & Knezevic‐Floric, 2018), China, Korea, and Japan (Ruan et al, 2015), Malaysia (Khairani & Makara, 2020) and Pakistan (Zai, 2016). However, other applicability and validation studies of TSES reported a five‐factor correlated structure in Malaysia (Johar & Badrasawi, 2009), a four‐factor correlated structure in Italy (Pintus et al, 2021) and Chile (Apablaza & Lira, 2016), and one‐factor structure in Peru (Dominguez‐Lara et al, 2019) as well as the United States (Duffin et al, 2012; Fives & Buehl, 2009). For example, Dominguez‐Lara et al (2019) found no evidence for the three‐factor model but the bifactor model established one‐factor model for the scale.…”

“…Given that the TSES was developed and tested in North America, its generalization to other cultures, especially in non‐western populations like Ghana has not been tested to ascertain whether its items appropriately fit the Ghanaian context. Besides, inconsistencies in the findings from previous validation studies (e.g., Apablaza & Lira, 2016; Dominguez‐Lara et al, 2019; Duffin et al, 2012; Fives & Buehl, 2009; Johar & Badrasawi, 2009; Pintus et al, 2021) suggest that further studies are warranted to ascertain the applicability of the TSES using different samples with a modern non‐sample dependent measurement procedure like the item response theory (IRT).…”