Measuring Educational Research Literacy: Development and Validation of Educational Research Literacy Scale

Abstract

The present study aimed to develop and validate an instrument to measure educational research literacy. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was used with conveniently sampled six participants for interviews, five content experts for instrument content validation, and eighty-nine faculty members for the pilot testing of the instrument. Confidentiality of data was assured and informed consent from respondents was secured. Qualitative data were thematically analyzed. Data from content experts were analyzed to obtain Content Validity Indices (CVIs) of the items (I-CVIs) and the scale (S-CVI). Quantitative data from pilot testingwere subjected to reliability and factor analyses. A 24-item Educational Research Literacy Scale (ERLS) measuring four dimensions, namely knowledge of research concepts, data literacy, information literacy, and evidence-based reasoning was developed and validated. Furthermore, ERLS had sound psychometric properties with established evidence of validity and reliability. Moreover, this study recommended that other evidences of instrument validity should be established.