Establishing Validity of the Thai Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument

Abstract

This article presents our work in translating the Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (MTEBI) from English to Thai and our resulting investigation of validity with Thai preservice teachers. The translation process occurred over several meetings between two U.S. mathematics educators and one Thai mathematics educator. To check for reliability the instrument was translated into Thai, back‐translated into English, and then cognitive interviews were conducted with native Thai speakers to check for accuracy, meaning, and readability. We used the newly translated Thai‐Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (T‐MTEBI) to measure teacher efficacy beliefs as they related to Thai preservice mathematics teachers. Eight of the questions measure Mathematics Teaching Outcome Expectancy (MTOE). The mean of the scores on these questions was computed to form a MTOE score for each student. The remaining 13 questions measure Personal Mathematics Teaching Efficacy (PMTE). The mean of these scores was computed to obtain the PMTE score for each student. The mean of all 21 questions was computed to find an overall efficacy score for each student. The results of this study showed that the newly constructed T‐MTEBI produced reliability and validity measures comparable to the original MTEBI (Enochs, Smith, & Huinker, 2000).

Greek Pre-Service Primary Teachers’ Efficacy Beliefs in Science and Mathematics Teaching: Initial Adaptation of the STEBI-B and MTEBI Instruments

“…In the present study, Greek pre-service primary teachers had medium to high scores in personal efficacy and outcome expectancy, both for science and mathematics teaching, resembling the findings of the extant literature (Bates et al, 2011;Bleicher, 2004;Matney et al, 2016;Mulholland et al, 2004;Utley et al, 2005). In fact, pre-service teachers' scores in personal efficacy were found to be greater than their scores in outcome expectancy, both for science and mathematics teaching, revealing that even if they feel confident in their own abilities, they may have doubts about the effectiveness of their teaching on student outcomes (Deehan, 2017;Shroyer et al, 2014).…”

“…In the PMTE, scores range from 13 to 65 and higher scores indicate higher personal teaching efficacy beliefs in mathematics; in the MTOE, scores range from 8 to 40 and higher scores indicate a higher mathematics teaching outcome expectancy. According to the existing literature, the MTEBI has demonstrated good construct validity and internal consistency (Enochs et al, 2000;Matney, Jackson, & Panarach, 2016). In the present study, the psychometric properties of the Greek MTEBI were examined and these are described in the Results section.…”

“…Specifically, item 8 was excluded from the Greek MTEBI, strengthening the aforementioned claim that preservice teachers did not understand the meaning of the word "ineffective"; item 9 loaded marginally below the cut-off point. Although the Greek MTEBI demonstrated good construct validity and both scales showed good internal consistency (Enochs et al, 2000;Matney et al, 2016), there is also a need for further revision.…”

“…Table 4 shows the mean ranks of the PSTE and STOE scales according to teacher's gender and year of study. (Enochs & Riggs, 1990;Enochs et al, 2000;Matney et al, 2016), two factors were also requested. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis, KMO = .80.…”