A study of the attitudes of elementary and middle school teachers towards guidance and psychological counseling

Thisstudywasconducted in ordertodevelop a Likertscaleinstrumenttoassesstheattitudes of elementaryandmiddleschoolteacherstowardcounselingandpsychologicalconsulting. Theresearchpopulation is teachersworking at elementaryandmiddleschools in Central Yalova. Participantsare 368 subjectandclassroomteachersworking at 26 schoolswhowereselectedbyrandomsampling. Applications wererealized in the 2013-2014 academicyear. Initially 100 itemsweredevelopedandpresentedtotheexperts. FollowingLawsheanalysisthatlooked at contentvalidity, 20 itemswereeliminated. Thenewscaleconsisting of 80 itemswereadministeredtothe 368 classroomandsubjectteacherswhoworked in Yalova duringthe 2013-2014schoolyear. Principalcomponentanalysisandfactoranalysiswereconducted in ordertodetermineconstructvalidity, andvarimaxrotationwasapplied. A seven step factoranalysisrevealed a 28-item scalewith 8 factorswitheigenscoreshigherthan 1, thatexplained %69.525 of the total variance. Tocalculatereliability, theCronbach's α(α=0.72) wasmeasuredanditemsthatreducedalphawereeliminated. Followingthisinitialeliminationalltheitemsthatload on thefactorswiththelowestitemcounts (Factors 3,5, 6, 7 and 8) and a 3-factor scale (ImprovementEffect, AcademicInterest, Attendance at CounselingEvents) wasattained. No reverseitemsarepresent in thescaleandincreasedscoresindicate an increase in thevariable of interest. Thescale has 17 itemsand a total alphascore of α=0.92, withsubtests' alphascoresrangingfrom αmin=0.70 to αmax=0.94. Theitem-total anditem-remainingcorrelationsusingPearsonanalysesaresignificant (p<.001); t-test analysesaresignificantforboththefactorsandtheitems. Pearsonanalysesalsoshowedthecorrelationsbetweenthefactorsaresignificant (p<.001). Inordertodeterminereliability, thescalewasadministeredtothesameparticipantsafter a twoweekdelay, andthe total andsubtestcorrelationswerestatisticallysignificant (rtop=.833; p<.001). Results of thisstudysupportthevalidityandreliability of thisscale. Theanalysesthatlooked at theresearchhypothesesrevealedstatisticallysignificantimpact of the "seniority" variable on the "teacher'sacademicinterest" subscalescore, the "gender" variable on the "attendance at counselingevents" subscalescore, andthe "number of seminarsandcoursesattendedbytheteacher" variable on the "improvement" and on the"teacher'sacademicinterestsubscalescore.