Levels of motivation and self-regulation for synchronous distance mathematics education: A scale development study

This study aims to develop a valid and reliable scale that can measure middle school students' motivation and self-regulation skills in online remote mathematics lessons. The study used a quantitative research design. The scale development process was conducted in six steps. The first step involved conducting a literature review to create an item pool. Distance education, motivation, and self-regulation concepts which were in literature were examined. National and international studies related to these concepts were reviewed. Additionally, studies exploring the relationship of these concepts with different variables were examined to identify the factors influencing these concepts. This process helped determine the general dimensions related to these concepts. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with 20 randomly selected students from the sample group to gain insights into the items that would constitute the item pool. In the second stage of the research, the type of scale to be used was determined. Considering the ease of use, the characteristics to be measured, and the participants' levels, a 5-point Likert-type scale was preferred. Expert opinions were obtained regarding the prepared item pool in the third step. Items that were not useful for the purpose or served the same purpose were eliminated from the scale based on the opinions of experts in the field. Then, the opinions of language experts were sought to make reductions and corrections in terms of clarity, grammar, and expression. The fourth step involved conducting a pilot application. A pilot application was carried out to anticipate and prevent problems encountered in the actual implementation and test comprehensibility. The main aim here was to test the clarity of the scale. No items that could be misunderstood or were difficult to understand were encountered in the pilot application. Therefore, no items were removed in this step. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the construct validity. First of all, when factor loads were examined, two items in the motivation scale and three items in the self-regulation scale were below 0,30 so they were excluded from the scale. As a result of the analyzes made, it was seen that the fit indices were acceptable and perfectly fit according to the literature. Finally, reliability studies were conducted, and the item-total correlations of the scale items were determined. The preferred Cronbach's alpha coefficients for internal consistency measurements of the scale were calculated as 0,881 for the motivation scale and 0,875 for the self-regulation scale. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the sub-dimensions of the scale were calculated as follows: For motivation (attention 0,729; relationship 0,753; trust 0,721; satisfaction 0,712 and action 0,709), for self-regulation (behavioral 0,801; environmental 0,729 and confidential 0,705). To test discriminability, the differences in mean scores between the lower and upper 27% groups were found to be significant at the 0,01 level. As a result of the research, a valid and reliable scale has been created.