Examining the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale at the Item Level With Rasch Measurement Model

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric quality of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) with data collected from 554 teachers in a U.S. Midwestern state. The many-facet Rasch model was used to examine several potential contextual influences (years of teaching experience, school context, and levels of emotional exhaustion) on item functioning within the TSES. Results suggest that although TSES items are rather easy for teachers to endorse, sufficient variance in the item endorsement hierarchy of the scale exists to support the validity of score interpretations. The items are invariant across years of teaching experience or school locations, but not invariant across levels of emotional exhaustion.