Construction and Validation of a Scale for Measuring Educational Efficiency of Faculty Members

The present study aims at identifying the components of educational efficiency of faculty members, and construction and validation of a scale for measuring their educational efficiency. A mixed method was used (focus groups and factor analysis). The population consisted of faculty members (contractual, formal-probationary, and formal-permanent) working at 10 Humanities Faculties at the University of Tehran during the academic year 2007-08. The sample (size=200) was selected using stratified random sampling. Some questionnaires were excluded due to inadequate data. Finally, 137 complete questionnaires were analyzed. Faculty Member’s Educational Efficiency Scale was prepared in three stages as follows: 1) Analysis of results from previous studies for identifying the components of education efficiency; 2) Preparation of questionnaire items for initial implementation; 3) Final implementation and validation of educational efficiency scale After the first and second stages, the questionnaire was initially implemented in a small sample group, and the results were used to make the necessary revisions in the basic version of the questionnaire. The initial draft of the revised version was developed considering comments from the research team and measurement experts. The result was a final instrument intended for field research. The validity coefficient of scale measures was 0.902 using Cronbach’s alpha. To determine the validity of the scale, principal components factor analysis was used. The result of the study was the identification of the components of educational efficiency in eight categories. In addition, a 42-item questionnaire was developed to measure the educational efficiency of faculty members at the level of departments and faculties. The scale explains 65% of the total variance of the variable.