Origins of the mTSES

The origins of the Mobile Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale instrument are summarized in this excerpt from Power, Cristol and Gimbert (2014):

The mTSES survey tool is designed to measure teacher’s perceptions of self-efficacy with respect to integrating mobile RLOs into their teaching and learning practice. The survey was adapted from the Ohio State Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001a, 2001b). The TSES survey was selected… because its reliability and construct validity [had] been previously established through comparison with the Rand scale and the personal teaching efficacy and general teacher efficacy factors of the Gibson and Dembo instrument (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001a).

The original TSES instrument consists of 24 questions using a nine-point Likert-scale to rate perceptions of self-efficacy in the areas of student engagement, instructional strategies, and class management skills (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001a, 2001b) . Minor changes were made to the wording of some questions from the original TSES for contextualization purposes. Those questions that were modified were added to the original set of TSES questions, resulting in a new 38 question survey. The combination of the TSES and mTSES questions into a single instrument allows for measurement and cross-comparison of teachers’ perceptions of self-efficacy for teaching practices and general, as well as the use of mobile learning strategies. Benton-Borghi (2006) used a similar strategy to adapt the TSES for a new instrument called the Inclusion Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale (I-TSES). The I-TSES was developed in the context of measuring teacher’s perceptions of self-efficacy with using technology to facilitate the inclusion of students with disabilities.

Power (2015a) used the procedures outlined by Benton-Borghi (2006) to conduct statistical analyses to determine the actual construct validity and reliability for the mTSES. The following excerpt from Power (2015a) summarizes the findings:

The construct validity of the original TSES and the adapted mTSES total scale questions are comparable because they are also virtually identical, with the exception that the phrase “how much can you do to…” from the original TSES was changed to “how much can you use alternative (technology-based) resources to…” for the mTSES. The comparability of the of TSES and mTSES total scales is supported by the similarities in the Cronbach’s alpha scores obtained for the TSES by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001), the TSES scores obtained during the First and Second mTSES administrations in this research study, and the mTSES scores obtained during the First and Second mTSES administrations.

mTSES Resources

An interactive online version of the mTSES is currently being developed that will allow individual users to determine their own scores for the TSES and mTSES sub-domains of Student Engagement, Instructional Strategies, and Classroom Management. A downloadable version of the mTSES survey is available in both PDF format and Excel spreadsheet format:

• mTSES Survey (PDF)
• mTSES Survey (Excel Format) is available from http://robpower.weebly.com/mtses.html

Using the mTSES as a Research Tool

An online version of the mTSES survey instrument is available using Google Forms. The form should be copied into your own Google Drive account. Simply copy the form, and update the settings so that it reports submissions to a new Google Sheets document. You’ll then be able to download the data in common spreadsheet application formats for offline quantitative analysis.

Using the mTSES to Evaluate and Optimize mLearning PD

The following video was first presented at the 14th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning, and talks about the validation of the mTSES instrument, and the use of the instrument as a tool to evaluate and optimize mLearning professional development:

This conference presentation was later adapted into a full paper available
through the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning.