Assessing the validity and reliability of enabling structure scale in mainland China
International Journal of Educational Management
ISSN: 0951-354X
Article publication date: 11 June 2024
Issue publication date: 8 July 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Developing an enabling bureaucratic structure for school organization has been an important aim of education governance reforms in China, like many societies across the globe, since the 1990s. However, there is a lack of valid measures to investigate the extent to which the Chinese education governance reforms facilitate the development of the enabling structure of school bureaucracy and examine the antecedents and consequences of enabling school bureaucracy. Thus, the study was conducted to validate the Chinese version of the Enabling Structure Scale (ESS-Ch), which is used to assess school bureaucracy in China.
Design/methodology/approach
The study surveyed 1,146 teachers enrolled in professional development courses provided by a Beijing university. The validation process involved two phases. In the first phase, the sample was divided into three subgroups for exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and cross-validation. In the second phase, reliability and validity were assessed utilizing the entire sample.
Findings
It indicated a four-factor model of the ESS-Ch: enabling formalization, coercive formalization, enabling centralization and hindering centralization. Factor loadings ranged from 0.72 to 0.88, composite reliabilities ranged from 0.82 to 0.95 and values of average variance extracted ranged from 0.61 to 0.80.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes to the international literature by validating the ESS-Ch so as to provide a standard measure that can be applied in comparative studies on enabling school bureaucracy between Chinese and Western cultures.
Originality/value
The study is original by validating the ESS-Ch based on a sample of 1,146 teachers in China.
Keywords
Citation
Zhang, W. and Tsang, K.K. (2024), "Assessing the validity and reliability of enabling structure scale in mainland China", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 38 No. 5, pp. 1524-1539. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-08-2023-0401
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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