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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1491615
This article is part of the Research Topic Scales Validation in the Context of Inclusive Education View all 6 articles

Development and Validation of a Secondary School Classroom Engagement Instrument in Math and Science in the Ethiopian Context

Provisionally accepted
Alemayehu Berhanu Areda Alemayehu Berhanu Areda 1,2*Tesfaye Semela Kukem Tesfaye Semela Kukem 2Belay Moges Woldemichael Belay Moges Woldemichael 1
  • 1 Dilla University, Dilla, Ethiopia
  • 2 School of Teacher Education, College of Education, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia, Hawassa, Ethiopia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Classroom engagement is the most influential variable in predicting students' academic achievement. However, a valid and reliable instrument for measuring students' classroom engagement in the Ethiopian context remains unexplored. This study aimed to develop and validate an Ethiopian secondary school student classroom engagement instrument.A total of 119 items were selected through a rigorous literature review, and 40 of these items were initially drafted on the basis of expert judgment. These selected items were subsequently tested on 1771 students: 383 for exploratory factor analysis (EFA), 1346 for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and 42 for test-retest reliability. The internal consistency of the full scale and subscales of this tool were computed via Cronbach's alpha. The measurements of invariance across gender and grade levels were analyzed to determine the level of equivalence of the instrument.The findings revealed that this tool is valid and reliable and measures six sub-constructs of the attribute of classroom engagement. Therefore, the use of such valid and reliable tools in future measurement studies of Ethiopian high school students' mathematics and science classroom engagement is suggested.Finally, scholars in math and science research would benefit from using this tool either to crossvalidate or synthesize their studies.

    Keywords: validity, item development, Classroom Engagement, EFA, CFA, Ethiopia

    Received: 05 Sep 2024; Accepted: 27 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Areda, Kukem and Woldemichael. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Alemayehu Berhanu Areda, Dilla University, Dilla, Ethiopia

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