Design and validation of an instrument for measuring research skills in Early Childhood Education teachers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to design and psychometrically validate an instrument to measure research skills in Early Childhood Education teachers in Colombia. An instrumental quantitative design was used. Content validity was estimated through the judgment of four experts using Aiken's V coefficient, and construct validity was analyzed through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal components with Varimax rotation. The sample consisted of 342 early childhood education teachers from public and private institutions in urban and rural areas of Colombia. The final instrument, named HIDEI (Research Skills in Early Childhood Education Teachers), comprised 26 items distributed across five dimensions: Exploratory, Cognitive, Methodological, Communicative, and Cooperative. The results showed an overall content validity of 0.70 and adequate internal consistency indices: Cronbach's alpha was 0.924 overall, with per-dimension values ranging from 0.713 to 0.861. The factor structure showed a KMO index of 0.917 and a significant Bartlett's test (p < .001), confirming data adequacy for EFA. The five-factor solution satisfactorily explained the theoretical construct. In conclusion, the HIDEI instrument demonstrates adequate psychometric properties for assessing research skills in early childhood education teachers in the Colombian context..