Reliability and validity of a Tutorial Group Effectiveness Instrument

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

The TGEI in this study appeared to reveal valid and reliable factor scores. The TGEI can be used to provide students and facilitators with feedback about the student's learning in the PBL group. Increased awareness of group functioning is an important aspect of feedback which can lead to an improvement of tutorial group effectiveness which will enhance student learning and academic performance.

Table 1.  Items and factors within the TGEI

Items and factors	Mean (1–5)	SD	N
Factor 1: Cognitive aspects
1. During the tutorial, many explanations of the subject content were given by individual students	3.30	1.21	449
2. In the tutorial, group explanations of the subject content were given in own words	3.18	1.21	449
3. Students posed adequate questions to each other to obtain a deeper understanding of the subject matter	3.21	1.18	449
4. Students asked critical questions to check the explanations of content given by other students	3.01	1.14	449
5. In the tutorial group, I learnt much from the contributions of the other group members	3.08	1.24	449
6. In the tutorial group, misconceptions about the subject matter were corrected by other group members	3.39	1.11	449
7. Group members built on each other's arguments	3.19	1.01	449
Factor 2: Motivational aspects
8. I felt myself as a member of the group responsible for the progress of the group	3.49	1.13	449
9. If I did not prepare well for the tutorial group meeting, I felt uncomfortable in the group	3.62	1.29	449
10. I became more perceptive and sensitive to the needs of the other students within my group during group work	3.43	1.06	449
11. The tutorial group stimulated my self-study activities	3.35	1.23	449
12. The tutorial group had a positive effect on my academic commitments/efforts	3.17	1.21	449
13. My interest in the subject matter increased due to the discussions in the tutorial group	3.30	1.21	449
14. The tutorial group discussion stimulated my group mates to exert maximum effort	2.92	1.14	449
Factor 3: Demotivational aspects
15. During the course of the tutorial, some group members contributed less to the tutorial group discussion	3.79	1.23	449
16. Some group members intentionally withheld information they had acquired during self-study	3.04	1.24	449
17. I did not contribute as much as to the tutorial group discussion as I could have done	2.86	1.29	449
18. Some group members had a negative effect on the contributions of other group members	2.72	1.32	449
19. Some group members let others do the work	3.44	1.30	449
20. Give a qualification for the overall group productivity (overall score) (1 = insufficient, 2 = reasonable, 3 = sufficient, 4 = good, 5 = excellent)	3.20	0.52	449

Note: Scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree.

Table 2.  Number of items, number of students, minimum and maximum score, mean score (scale 1–5), SD, and coefficient alpha per factor and/or the overall group productivity score (scale 1–5)

	N items	N	Minimum	Maximum	Mean	SD	Alpha
F1: Cognitive	7	449	1	5	3.12	0.81	0.82
F2: Motivational	7	449	1	5	3.32	0.82	0.82
F3: Demotivational	5	449	1	5	3.17	0.82	0.64
Overall score	19	449	1	5	3.20	0.52	0.79

Table 3.  Fit indices of the one-factor, two-factor and three-factor models

	N	Chi-square	df	P	CMIN/df	RMSEA	CFI	TLI	PCLOSE
One factor	449	965.22	153	0.000	6.308	0.109	0.701	0.666	0.000
Two factor	449	766.45	152	0.000	5.042	0.095	0.774	0.745	0.000
Three factor	449	452.08	149	0.000	3.034	0.067	0.888	0.872	0.000

Note: N = 449. Method: maximum likelihood.

Table 4.  Estimated variance components for the variance associated with groups and students nested within groups are given (in percentages in between brackets) and the generalizability coefficient (G-coefficient) and SEM, as a function of the number of student ratings (N) for the 3 factors (scale 1–5) and the overall score

	Estimated variance components
Factor	Group	SG	N	G-coefficient	SEM
F1: Cognitive	0.10 (15%)	0.56 (85%)	8	0.59	0.26
			9	0.62	0.25
			10	0.65	0.24
			11	0.67	0.23
F2: Motivation	0.04 (6%)	0.64 (94%)	8	0.33	0.28
			9	0.36	0.27
			10	0.39	0.25
			11	0.41	0.24
F3: Demotivation	0.07 (10%)	0.60 (90%)	8	0.49	0.27
			9	0.52	0.26
			10	0.55	0.25
			11	0.57	0.23
Overall score	0.28 (22%)	0.99 (78%)	8	0.69	0.35
			9	0.72	0.33
			10	0.74	0.32
			11	0.76	0.30
			15	0.81	0.26

Note: The overall score was a separate item and is not the mean score of all the 19 items, but deals with one overall item (item 20).