School Occupational Health and Safety Performance Scale: Validity and Reliability Study for Scale Development

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develope a scale to evaluate the performance of occupational health and safety practices in schools. The form created for this purpose was presented to experts and the content validity rates of the items were determined in line with the feedback received. The items with a content validity ratio below .80 were excluded from the study. The 49-item trial form was applied via e-mail to 990 teachers working at primary, secondary, and high school levels in public and private schools in İstanbul, affiliated with the Ministry of National Education, and the data obtained were analyzed. With exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), a two-dimensional structure consisting of 40 items in total revealed "Occupational Health and Safety Training Practices Applied in Schools" and "Occupational Health and Safety Practices Applied in Schools, Managerial Precautions and Precautions". It was determined that the goodness of-fit indices of the model were quite high. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) also confirmed the EFA results. The obtained correlation coefficients were examined. Item-total score correlation coefficients were between r = .878 and r = .650, and a significant relationship was observed at the p < .01 level. The internal consistency coefficient obtained for the entire scale was .92. There was a significant (p< 0.05) difference between the items and the total score between the 27% lower and 27% upper groups. It was determined that this difference was in favor of the upper 27% group. There was high reliability in the items on the scale, and the items were distinguishable on the basis of the characteristics the scorers of the scale were looking for.