The Validity of the Pedagogical Beliefs of High School Islamic Education Teachers' Survey

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to establish validity evidence for the Arabic translation of an existing survey developed by Iluz and Rich (2009) for Jewish education. The Pedagogical Beliefs of High School Islamic Education Teachers' Survey was developed by the author, and administered to Islamic education teachers in Saudi Arabia. That study was published in Almatari (2012). An adequate validity analysis was not conducted; therefore, a further investigation was necessary. 201 male and female Islamic education teachers participated in this study. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to evaluate the translation-back translation procedure. Maximum Likelihood (ML), Principle Axis Factoring (PAF), Alpha Factoring (AF), and Unweighted Least Square (ULS) were selected as methods of extraction. Promax rotation method was requested. Results were consistent among these four methods of extraction. Four items were removed due to low communalities or the items did not reach the acceptable minimum load to its factor. The whole survey was supported by EFA. Five factors were extracted from the 24 items. The five underlying factors resulted from consulting EFA were theoretically supported as well. Translation back-translation technique was performed well, and led to clear interpretations for EFA results.