Analysis of an instrument to monitor the actions of an educational program: reliability and validity with R.

Abstract

The Inclusion and Educational Equality Program (PIIE, in Spanish) has been performed in La Rioja Province from year 2004. The objective of the program is to strenghthen the instruction in general basic education schools located in vulnerable areas of the cities by means of five intervention lines. During year 2005, information from a sample of schools was collected and all teachers were interviewed to measure their perception of themselves regarding achievements and difficulties they encountered to perform each line of the program. This research work analyzes the reliability and validity of the instrument construct applied in order to determine if it is qualified enough to be used in the study. The answers of 204 interviewees, which include teachers and managers of educational institutions of the capital city and other cities of the province, were considered. Reliability has been evaluated according to Cronbach coefficient and the validity of the construct through the instrument applied has been evaluated by means of the exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation. The information has been processed with the reliability analysis available in the Rcmdr package from the R software. The realibility analysis has been performed for each of the five intervention lines and all of the quotients resulted in more than 0.80. Regarding validity, the exploratory factor analysis shows that five extracted factors remove 65% of the items variation or variables included, being the lines considered in the instrument associated to them. The relevance of the items related to the different lines and the need to reformulate one of them has been analysed. It has been concluded that, in general terms, the instrument has the required properties to be used in future applications.