Chemistry Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Perception Scale for Teaching in Chemistry Laboratories

Abstract

Self-efficacy is a situational and subject-dependent construct instead of a personal characteristic, general perception, or personal competence. This study aimed to develop and validate a scale that would determine chemistry teachers' perceived self-efficacy for teaching in the laboratories. To this end, a selfefficacy perception scale for teaching in the lab (SEPTL, for short) was developed over several stages, subjected to exploratory factor (EFA) and confirmatory factor (CFA) analysis, as well as a series of validity and reliability studies involving 261 chemistry teachers. The results of the EFA and CFA revealed that our SEPTL scale includes three factors and 29 items. Factor 1 (conducting experiments) includes 13 items and accounted for 28.372% of the total variance. Factor 2 (using technology in the lab) included nine items and accounted for 16.654% of the total variance. Factor 3 (lab safety) included seven items and accounts for 14.023% of the total variance. The whole scale accounts for 59.049% of the variance. Our findings demonstrate that the Chronbach's α was 0.957 for the whole, 0.952 for Factor 1, 0.878 for Factor 2, and 0.875 for Factor 3. These values suggest that the SEPTL scale is highly reliable.