Psychometric Properties of the Teachers' Self-Efficacy Beliefs for Students' Moral Education

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate psychometric properties of the Teacher Efficacy for Moral Education Scale (TEMES) among Iranian teachers. In this correlation study, 200 teachers (100 male, 100 female) completed the TEMES and the Short Character Strength Measure (SCSM). The confirmatory factor analysis method and internal consistency were used to compute the TEMES's factorial validity and reliability, respectively. Also, in order to examine the construct validity of the Teacher Efficacy for Moral Education Scale, we computed correlation between different dimensions of TEMES with different character strengths. The results of confirmatory factor analysis, based AMOS software, indicated that multidimensional structure of the TEMES consisted teacher positivity and teacher instructional practices had acceptable fit to data in the teacher’s sample. Correlation analyses between different dimensions of TEMES with character strengths (wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence) provided initial evidence for the TEMES construct validity. Internal consistencies for the scales measuring teacher positivity and teacher instructional practices were 0/80 and 0/81, respectively. In sum, these findings provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the TEMES as an instrument to measure teachers’ personal self-efficacy for fostering moral character in the classroom among Iranian teacher’s sample.