Development and validation of a professional ethics scale for pre-service teachers

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale to investigate Turkish pre-service teachers' perceptions of professional ethics in teaching. This survey research consisted of two studies. In study 1, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed in SPSS 23 in order to investigate the scale’s factorial structure. Study 1 involved a convenience sample of 220 senior pre-service teachers studying at two Turkish public universities. The EFA yielded a single factor structure which accounted for 39.36% of the total variance and included 43 items. In study 2, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted in LISREL 9.30 to test and confirm the uni-dimensional structure of the 43-item scale obtained in study 1 on a data set of 724 participants from four public universities. Overall, the results prove that this 43-item scale is a valid and reliable tool to test pre-service teachers’ perceptions of professional ethics.