Using a reliability factorial analysis design to measure teacher' attitudes toward economics education in Free State secondary schools

Abstract

 Economics teachers in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase currently find themselves in a transitional phase between the traditional teaching approach and the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) based on a problem-based learning approach. The purpose of this paper is to measure teachers' perception of economics education by using an exploratory factor analysis in a South African context. It makes use of an exploratory, descriptive, contextual research design, implementing the quantitative research method. A closed structured forty-five item questionnaire, the Attitude Toward Economics Education (ATEE scale) was constructed to survey teachers' perceptions (n=319) of the economics subject in relation to some demographic information. Factor analysis was applied to the 45-item ATEE questionnaire and six factors extracted as the latent variables for  forty five items, with one item dropped due to low factor loadings. Reliability analysis shows that the internal consistency of factors was between acceptable (α = 0.786) and excellent (α =  0.881). The six underlying factors were related to the following themes: value of economic  education; difficulty of economics as a subject; knowledge and skills for the enhancement of  economic literacy; enjoyment of economics; academic application; and facilitation during  workshop sessions. The instrument can therefore be used for further research to determine the effects of other variables  including learning styles, teaching styles, retention, assessment 
and absenteeism  that may have direct effects on the performance of economics teachers in 
South African schools.