Abstract:
Some EFL teachers have tragically fossilized in their career and have reluctantly
participated in teachers' in-service classes. Teachers Continuous Professional
Development (CPD) is an indispensable part of teaching career. Accordingly, the
current study was to design, develop, and validate items for an effective scale for
CPD programs in Iranian English foreign language context. In fact, factor analysis
was the main concern in this study. Initially, the tentative model with 55 items was
piloted and tested through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis on a sample
of 400 English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. This level resulted in the
removal of 8 items in the sample loaded and led to the final CPD inventory with 47
items. Convergent validity of the CPD variable was derived from the output of
confirmatory factor analysis in the Lisrel Software. The significant score of all
model parameters was larger than 1.96. Therefore, the validity of the construct of
measuring the relevant variables was substantiated and confirmed at a significant
level of 0.05. Furthermore, the result indicated that the research model was in the
domain of acceptance. Also, convergent validity was confirmed and validated. The
fitting indexes of the model also revealed that the measurement models were
substantiated in terms of external validity. The findings of this study can offer
pedagogical implications to English teaching and learning stakeholders, educational
policy makers, officials, and those involved in second language teacher education as
well as English language teachers in EFL contexts.
Machine summary:
Vol. 6, No. 3, 2019,105-130 Validating a Continuing Professional Development Scale among Iranian EFL Teachers Anis Behzadi1*, Mohammad Golshan2, Sima Sayadian3 1*, Department of English, Maybod Branch, Islamic Azad University, Maybod, Yazd, Iran, anis.
Accordingly, the current study was to design, develop, and validate items for an effective scale for CPD programs in Iranian English foreign language context.
In practice, the importance of this study is to design, develop, and validate items for an effective scale for CPD programs in Iranian English foreign language context.
Accordingly, the main purpose of the current study is to design, develop, and validate items for an effective scale for teachers Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs.
Teacher professional development is a foundation of educational improvements which explores to enhance student achievement (Morgado, Meireles, Neves, Amaral, & Ferreira, 2017; Wei, Darling-Hammond, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009; Hoewook, & Hyunjin, 2010).
Also, to study the impact of teachers professional development programs on their students' achievements (Abell & Lee, 2008; Avolas, 2011; Harris & Sass, 2007; Lovett, Lacerenza, de Palma, Benson, Steinbach, Friiters, 2008; Vogt & Rogalla, 2009).
Besides, to increase student motivation (Ermeling, 2010; Frey & Fisher, 2009; Guay, Valois, Falardeau & Lessard, 2016; Levine & Marcus, 2010; Morais, Neves, & Alfonso, 2005; Seymour & Osana, 2003).
There have been some researchers that conducted research studies about professional development (Asmari, 2016; Christen Conklin Topolinski, 2014; Katalin Zoller, 2015; Koellner & Jacobs, 2015; Mpho, Dichaba, Matseliso & Mokhele, 2012; Sebastian Hooks, 2015; Richards & Farrel, 2005).