The development and validation of a self-report instrument to assess attitudes and self-efficacy of preservice teachers toward teaching linguistically and culturally diverse PE classes

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to develop and psychometrically evaluate a self-report instrument to assess attitudes and self-efficacy of Physical Education (PE) preservice teachers toward teaching linguistically and culturally diverse PE classes. An 18-item instrument was developed for the initial tests. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted on two independent samples of PE preservice teachers (n_efa = 254; n_cfa = 183). The EFA revealed a four-factor structure: attitudes toward multilingualism, attitudes toward linguistic simplification, language awareness in lesson planning, and self-efficacy to teach culturally diverse classes. The reliability scores for the four factors range from .61 to .76. CFA showed that the constructs demonstrated a good fit to the model (S-B Bχ²(48, 183) = 70.40, p = .02, robust RMSEA = .05, robust CFI = .94), confirming the construct validity with high-dimensional factor loadings (ranging from .54 to .94). Discriminant validity was revealed through correlational analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• linguistically responsive teaching
• attitudes
• self-efficacy
• preservice teachers
• physical education teacher education

Notes

¹ That framework should take up knowledge from general LCD teacher programs and deepen it with disciplinary linguistic, social justice, and intercultural knowledge.

² Lucas and Villegas (2013) use the term “orientation” instead of the term “attitude”, which I am using synonymously in this paper.