Development and validation of teachers’ psychological empowerment scale in Ethiopian context

Abstract

The low motivations of teachers in Ethiopia reflect the psychological deempowerment of teachers. Thus, developing a scale is required to know exactly the empowerment level of teachers. Therefore, this study aimed at developing and validating a psychological empowerment scale in the Ethiopian context. The data were gathered from two different groups of 720 teachers (300+420) from 83 schools using a questionnaire. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results discovered four dimensions with a total variance of 69.685%. To know the fitness of the instrument in this study, the researcher carried out confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with the LISREL 8.7 program with 420 participants. RMSEA (RootMean Square Error of Approximation) = .065 level, GFI (Goodness of Fit Index) = .93, adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI) = .90, incremental fit index (IFI) = .98, relative fit index (RFI) = .96, non-normed fit index (NNFI) = .98 and comparative fit index (CFI) = .98. These values depict the good fitness of the model. Regading reliability, Cronbach’s alpha for goal internalization. Meaning, influence, and competence dimensions were 0.87, 0.842, 0.777, and 0.789, respectively. Total Cronbach’s alpha was .904. For this scale, the Average Variance Extracted and Combined Reliability are more than .7. Thus, the findings revealed that the psychological empowerment Scale, consisting of four dimensions and 15 items, was a valid and reliable instrument in Ethiopian school settings.