A Developmental Study of the Attitude Scale towards Teaching Arabic Language (ASTTAL): Reliability and Validity Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine the attitudes of Arabic teachers toward Arabic language teaching. The population of this study consists of 171 teachers and teacher candidates for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and 202 teachers for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), who teach Arabic in Turkey. The study population was reached through Google Forms in January and June 2022. Due to the difficulty and limitation of reaching Arabic language teachers, convenient sampling and snowball sampling methods were used in the selection of the study sample. The draft scale items created as a result of the literature review were evaluated by field experts for face and content validity, and the scale was finalized. EFA was used to test construct validity. The results of the analysis showed that the scale consisted of 23 items with two sub-dimensions. Sub-dimensions explain 56.95% of the variance. DFA was performed to validate the obtained results. The fitness values reached by DFA included CMIN/df=2.028, RMSEA=.072, CFI=.920, IFI=.921, and SRMR=.074. In general, it was determined that the CMIN/df fitness values, perfect fitness values, and other fitness coefficients were at an acceptable fitness level. The item discrimination level of the scale was found to be significant in favor of the upper group. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficients were examined to determine the reliability of the scale. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficients were 0.944 for the first sub-factor, 0.855 for the second sub-factor, and 0.944 for the whole scale. As a result of the analyses made, it was concluded that the two-factor scale consisting of 23 items was valid and reliable. All these findings revealed that the measurement tool has a structure that can measure the attitude of Arabic language teachers towards teaching Arabic.