Teacher Image: A Scale Development Study

The purpose of this study is to construct a Likert-type scale to determine how the professional image of teachers, one of the most important actors of the education system, is perceived by society (parents). A three-part study group was included in the study. The study included 546 parents for exploratory factor analysis, 304 for confirmatory factor analysis, and 93 for the test- retest application. As a result of the factor analysis carried out to determine the construct validity of the 50-item draft scale, a structure consisting of 19 items and 4 sub-dimensions was obtained. The first factor is Personal Characteristics, the second factor is Professional Characteristics, the third factor is Social Status and the fourth factor is Professional Preferences. The 4-factor structure obtained via exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis was tested. The 4- factor structure proposed according to the fit indices is confirmed. The overall CA reliability coefficient of the scale was expressed as 0.86. In addition, independent t-test between the upper and lower 27 % groups for the reliability of the scale brought out that the items and factors are distinguished, and the item-total and item-remaining correlation values are significant. The correlation values between the factors and the test-retest result were found considered significant for all the scales.