Classroom teacher candidates perceptions of teacher self-efficacy in developing students reading, writing and verbal skills: Scale development study

This work uses exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to study Verbal Skills Development Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (VSDTS), Reading Skills Development Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (RSDTS) and Writing Skills Development Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (WSDTS) developed to identify classroom teacher candidates’ perceptions of teacher self-efficacy in developing students’ verbal, reading and writing skills. KMO values above 0.80 in all the three scales showed that the dataset was suitable for factor analysis. It can be argued that the scales are reliable since the factor analyses pointed that all the three scales had a single-factor structure. VSDTS, RSDTS and WSDTS were very good in the principal components analysis conducted under the framework of exploratory factor analysis. Their Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficients calculated were in the range of 0.80≤ α <1.00. In the confirmatory factor analysis of VSDTS, good NFI and RMR values and SRMR and CFI values above 0.95 point to substantial fit. In this context, 16-item single factor structure of VSDTS scale was confirmed. For RSDTS, good GFI values, NFI and CFI values above 0.95 and SRMR and RMR values below 0.05 corresponded to substantial fit. In this context, 11-item single factor structure of RSDTS scale was confirmed. For WSDTS, good AGFI values, GFI, NFI and CFI values above 0.95 and SRMR and RMR values below 0.05 corresponded to substantial fit. In this context, 8-item single factor structure of WSDTS scale was confirmed. Key words: Verbal skills, reading skills, writing skills, self-efficacy.