Teachers’ Academic Optimism:Confirming a New Construct

Background: Academic optimism about teachers is a new construct. Sense of optimism has been emerging from positive psychology, optimism, social capital and equipment of schools’ studies. A teachersʹ academic optimism questionnaire that has been selected for assessment includes of three dimensions (trust in parents and students, a sense of self-efficacy, academic emphasis). The purpose of the research paper was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the teacher’ academic optimism questionnaire. Methods: The method of this study was validating and testing. After the translation of the questionnaire to Farsi, we then selected a random sample of 200 primary school teachers in Kermanshah. The Cronbachʹs alpha coefficient; exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to evaluate the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Findings: The questionnaire consists of three subscales: trust of parents and students; self-efficacy, and academic emphasis. Alpha coefficients for the subscales were Obtained 0/81, 0/67 and 0/75 respectively. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis of the research paper shows that the structure of the questionnaire is acceptable, based on the fit goodness of fit to the data and the model is verified. In addition, the outcomes of the research paper indicate that there is a positive relationship between the teacherʹs orientation toward life and academic optimism. Conclusion: The questionnaire of academic optimism is acceptable for use in the teacher population and the reliability and validity were satisfactory.