Development and Rasch Validation of the Teacher Educators' Spiritual Values and Ethical Conduct Scale: A Pilot Study in Northwest Nigeria

Measurement in the social sciences and humanities often requires quantitative data to evaluate unobservable latent traits, particularly when assessing behavioral attributes. Ensuring validity and reliability is critical to maintain precision and accuracy in research instruments. This pilot study employed a quantitative survey design to evaluate the measurement properties of a self-assessment instrument designed to measure spiritual values and ethical conduct among teacher educators in Northwest Nigeria. The instrument, comprising 50 items, was administered to 37 teacher educators from Shehu Shagari College of Education. Content validity was assessed by six experts in psychology and education in Malaysia and Nigeria Universties and teacher training Institutions. Data were analyzed using Rasch Model Analysis (RMA) with Winsteps version 3.72.3, examining item reliability, item fit, unidimensionality, and item measurement properties. The findings indicated that content validity - Item-level scores (I-CVI) ranged from 0.72 to 0.80 across domains, while scale-level agreement (S-CVI/UA) reached 0.92 for spiritual values and 0.96 for ethical conduct. While several items demonstrated strong validity and reliability, others exhibited misfit statistics, suggesting the need for refinement or elimination prior to large-scale implementation. Specifically, items that failed to meet the criteria for acceptable fit and reliability, item targeting and local dependence were identified for modification leaving 41 items for the main thesis. This study underscores the potential of Rasch Model Analysis to enhance the psychometric robustness of self-assessment tools, ensuring cultural relevance and accuracy in measuring spiritual values and ethical conduct in educational contexts.

Spiritual Values, Ethical Conduct, Self-assessment test, Rasch model analysis, Teacher Education.

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