Development of the “Seven Principles for Good Practice” Scale for Academics

This study aims to develop a valid and reliable scale to assess academics’ perceptions of the quality of undergraduate educational environments and to examine whether these perceptions differ across various variables. An exploratory sequential design was used. First, the researchers created an item pool of 55 items. The item pool was then presented to 17 experts. The researchers administered the scale to 397 academics from various universities using the snowball sampling method. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, 38 items with sufficient factor loadings were grouped under a single factor. To test the construct validity of the scale, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted with 268 academics. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient was found to be .99. In addition, In addition, the AVE value exceeded .50, while the CR value exceeded .70. Overall, the findings supported the validity and reliability of the 38-item, single-factor scale. The developed scale was then used to examine academics’ perceptions across various demographic and professional variables. The analysis revealed no statistically significant differences in academics' perceptions of the seven principles for good practice according to gender, undergraduate or postgraduate teaching experience, academic title, and seniority. These findings suggest that demographic and professional variables do not influence academics’ fundamental beliefs about effective educational practices.