Development and psychometric evidence of an engagement instrument in the pre-service teacher education context

• Published in: Studies in educational evaluation 2021-12, Vol.71, p.101095, Article 101095
• Main Authors: Saini, Charu, Abraham, Jessy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Factor analyses; Instrument development; Pre-service teacher engagement; Reliability; Validity
• ISSN: 0191-491X; 1879-2529
• DOI: 10.1016/j.stueduc.2021.101095

•Pre-service teacher engagement is an underexplored area of research.•An inductive approach was used to develop an engagement instrument in the Pre-service Teacher Engagement context.•Results supported a four-factor model of pre-service teacher engagement at a micro level.•Results also established convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability of the scale. The present study details the development and validation of an engagement instrument in the pre-service teacher education context. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses were used to obtain the factor structures performed on a sample of 196 and 212 pre-service teachers respectively. Exploratory factor analysis demonstrated four empirically interpretable and reliable dimensions: academic engagement, peer engagement, intellectual engagement, and online engagement. The confirmatory factor analysis results also supported the correlational four-dimensional model with adequate goodness-of-fit indices. Results also depicted convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument. Future research involved in the iterative process of instrument development is discussed.