A Validation Study on Teacher Educators’ Psychological Safety Scale

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to validate the psychological safety scale for teacher educators into Myanmar version. In this study, a total of 1040 teacher educators were participated as a sample and the required sample was selected by using simple random sampling technique. As the research instrument, Psychological Safety Scale (PSS) that was developed by O’Donovan et al., (2020), Individual Psychological Safety Scale (IPSS) that was developed by Liang et al., (2012), Psychological Safety Scale (PSS) that was developed by Li & Yan (2009) and Psychological Safety Inventory (PSI) that was developed by Edmondson (1999) were used. In Study 1, 500 teacher educators were selected from three Universities of Education and eighteen Education Degree Colleges in Myanmar for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and in Study 2, another 540 teacher educators were selected from three Universities of Education and eighteen Education Degree Colleges in Myanmar for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Psychological Safety Scale consisted of 35 items. According to the results of Study 1, there are no items which have low communality value (less than 0.2) and low factor loading value (less than 0.4). Therefore, 35 items were retained in the instrument. Then, the results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that Psychological Safety Scale consisted of 35 items with three factors. Then, the confirmatory factor analysis in Study 2 demonstrated 30 items with three factors of Psychological Safety Scale to measure psychological safety of teacher educators. Moreover, convergent validity was achieved for Psychological Safety Scale and discriminant validity was also accepted between the constructs based on the results of construct validity analysis. Finally, Psychological Safety Scale included 30 items with three subscales in the context of Myanmar. Thus, Psychological Safety Scale demonstrated sufficient evidence of the psychometric properties and it was a reliable and valid instrument for measuring teacher educators’ psychological safety according to Myanmar context. Moreover, it can be used as valuable instrument for Myanmar teacher educators regarding different backgrounds of Myanmar based on the adaptation and validation processes. Therefore, Psychological Safety Scale can serve as an effective instrument to assess teacher educators’ psychological safety based on the psychometric properties of the scale.