Abstract:

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine sources of anxiety for science teachers who do laboratory teaching. For this purpose, fifty-four participants in the field of science education (five doctoral students, nine graduate students, twelve teachers and twenty-eight undergraduate students) were asked to write a composition about "What anxieties does a science teacher experience in teaching process and in laboratory?" After content analysis of the compositions, a sixty-five item pool was created based on a review of the relevant literature. The item pool was presented to four experts’ opinions (three science experts and one language expert) to check its content and language validity. In keeping with the experts' opinions, five items were excluded from the scale. A ten-point Likert scale draft consisting of sixty items was first pilot tested with fourteen science teachers and then administered to one hundred and eleven teachers. The data collected were subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The a Cronbach alpha coefficients (0.91) of the sub-dimensions of the scale were high (science and laboratory=0.95, communication=0.91, and classroom management=0.88), indicating that items in the sub-dimensions were consistent with each other. The CFA results showed that the T values of all items were significant (p<0.05). These results show that this is a valid and reliable scale that can be used to measure anxieties about the laboratory teaching of science teachers.

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