Measuring Teacher Practices That Support Student Motivation: Examining the Factor Structure of the Teacher as Social Context Questionnaire Using Multilevel Factor Analyses

Abstract

We used multilevel factor analyses to investigate the structure of the Teacher as Social Context Questionnaire (TASCQ)-short form—a prominent measure of teacher practices that promote student motivation to learn. Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the TASCQ contains three scales: Autonomy Support, Structure, and Involvement. Few studies have tested the construct validities of these three scales together. Furthermore, the few studies using factor analyses with these constructs’ scales showed mixed results. Moreover, none of those studies properly modeled the clustered nature of data with a multilevel analysis. We examined the structure of TASCQ scores from 697 fifth and sixth graders in 35 classes by conducting multilevel exploratory and multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, each with half the sample. Results indicated that students did not distinguish among Autonomy Support, Structure, and Involvement items; the best fit was a single factor.