Developing an Assessment of School Educational Administration Scale (ASEAS) in the Light of Descriptive Multidimensional Item Response Theory

Developing an Assessment of School Educational Administration Scale (ASEAS) in the Light of Descriptive Multidimensional Item Response Theory
Abstract
The study aimed to develop a scale for assessing school educational administration based on the Descriptive Multidimensional Item Response Theory (Dmirt). The scale consisting of 78 items was administered to the first survey sample comprising 447 teachers to verify its factorial validity using Factor Analysis through Principal Components Analysis with oblique rotation method (PROMAX). The results indicated the development of the final version of the scale consisting of 67 items graded with seven-point, distributed across three dimensions with Eigenvalues greater than 1 and meeting the Gorsuch criteria. The first dimension (Tasks related to the implementation of the teaching process) included 28 items, the second dimension (Tasks related to the school's objectives) included 21 items, and the third dimension (Tasks related to organizing the school environment) included 18 items. The scale also demonstrated construct validity, with the correlation coefficients between the dimensions ranging from 0.798 to 0.818, all of which were statistically significant. The results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis applied to the data from the second survey sample of 731 teachers conformed to study model which consists of three dimensions, as all fit indices (CFI, TLI, RMSEA) met their established standards. The internal consistency reliability coefficients for the items of the first, second, and third dimensions were 0.95, 0.96, and 0.94 respectively, while the overall scale reliability coefficient was 0.96. Finally, the item parameters of the scale was estimated after its achieved the three steps related to the Descriptive Multidimensional Item Response Theory (Dmirt).
Keywords: School Educational Administration, Item Response Theory, Descriptive Multidimensional Item Response Theory