Construct Validity of the Arabic Version of the Democratic Teacher Beliefs Scale

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of the Arabic version of the Democratic Teacher Beliefs Scale (DTBS, Shechtman, 2002). DTBS measures the degree of democracy in teacher’s beliefs about students and classroom life. The Arabic version of DTBS was administered to a random sample of 152 students enrolled in the University of Bahrain. Factor Analysis of the Arabic version of DTBS revealed three major factors: Freedom, Equality, and Justice. These are the same factors of the original instrument. The internal consistency of the measure was .87, while the item-total correlation indices ranged between .27 and .63, an evidence of the construct validity of the Arabic version of DTBS. In the light of these findings, the author recommends to utilize the Arabic version of DTBS in institutions of higher education in the Kingdom of Bahrain in order to enforce positive democratic values at the University.