Department of Public Health Sciences, Queen's University, 21 Arch Street, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
BMC Psychol. 2019 Jun 10;7(1):32. doi: 10.1186/s40359-019-0307-y.
While mental health challenges in the classroom have increased over the past several years, existing research suggests that many educators feel unprepared to broach the topics of mental health and mental illness with their students. This paper outlines the development and gathering of preliminary evidence of validity for two new scales designed to assess teachers' confidence and worries related to delivering mental health content in the classroom.
Content evidence was collected through the use of two methods: a focus group held with members of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, and a consensus survey conducted among a sample of educational experts recruited from an Ontario university. Internal structure evidence was derived from the initial intake survey of an evaluation of a new online guide designed to give elementary school teachers the tools and knowledge to develop lesson plans related to mental health. Internal consistency reliability of test scores was estimated with Cronbach's alpha.
Both scales loaded on a single dimension with all items loading strongly (factor loadings greater than .60). Cronbach's alpha coefficients of .96 for scores on the Teacher Confidence Scale and .93 for scores on the What Worries Me Scale estimated strong internal consistency reliability.
We identified two unidimensional scales measuring concerns educators may have about discussing the topic of mental health in a classroom setting. The Teacher Confidence Scale for Delivering Mental Health Content contains 12 items measuring educators' confidence in delivering mental health related materials in the classroom. The What Worries Me Scale contains 11 items. These scales may be useful for evaluating programs, educational workshops, and other initiatives aimed at improving teachers' abilities to provide mental health content in the classroom.
尽管近年来课堂上的心理健康挑战有所增加，但现有研究表明，许多教育工作者觉得自己没有准备好与学生探讨心理健康和精神疾病的话题。本文概述了两项新量表的开发和初步有效性证据的收集，这些量表旨在评估教师在课堂上教授心理健康内容的信心和担忧。
内容证据通过两种方法收集：与安大略省小学教师联合会成员举行焦点小组会议，以及对从安大略省一所大学招募的教育专家样本进行共识调查。内部结构证据源自一项新的在线指南评估的初始摄入量调查，该指南旨在为小学教师提供工具和知识，以制定与心理健康相关的课程计划。采用克朗巴赫α系数估计测试分数的内部一致性可靠性。
两个量表都在一个单一维度上加载，所有项目都有很强的加载（因子负荷大于.60）。教师信心量表得分的克朗巴赫α系数为.96，关注量表得分的克朗巴赫α系数为.93，估计具有很强的内部一致性可靠性。
我们确定了两个衡量教育工作者在课堂环境中讨论心理健康话题的担忧的单一维度量表。《教授心理健康内容的教师信心量表》包含 12 个项目，衡量教育工作者在课堂上教授心理健康相关材料的信心。《关注量表》包含 11 个项目。这些量表可用于评估旨在提高教师在课堂上提供心理健康内容能力的方案、教育研讨会和其他举措。
