A Scale Development Study to Determine Preschool Teachers' Perception of Gender Roles in the Classroom

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop an in-class gender role perception scale for preschool teachers. The study group of the research consists of 493 pre-school teachers working in independent kindergartens, kindergartens within primary schools and kindergartens within secondary schools in Nevşehir, Kırşehir, Niğde and Aksaray provinces of Turkey. The content validity of the scale was ensured by expert opinions. Construct validity was ensured by both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. KMO and Bartlett tests were used to determine the suitability of the created items for factor analysis, and these tests were found to be significant at the p <.05 level. With the factor analysis performed to reveal the factor structure of the scale items, a structure consisting of 4 sub-dimensions and 42 items was determined: "general gender discourses in fairy tales and stories, gender role characteristics, gender-specific behavioral reactions and gender". In the reliability analysis of the scale items, Spearman-Brown and Guttman Split-Half reliability coefficients were calculated and these coefficients were found to be suitable for all sub-dimensions. Cronbach's Alpha (α) values were calculated and the resulting coefficient value was found suitable for reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed and the fit indices confirmed the structure created by the factor analysis.