The development and validation of an instrument for assessing college students' perceptions of faculty knowledge in technology-supported class environments

Research in the area of educational technology has argued that the technological pedagogical content knowledge of faculty is crucial to addressing the challenge of teaching in higher education in the digital age, which is characterized by the common use of instructional technology in college classrooms and the ubiquitous presence of computing on college campuses. We developed and validated an instrument for assessing students' perceptions of faculty knowledge (SPFK) in technology-supported classroom environments. A total of 50 items in 4 constructs with 9 items in subject matter knowledge (SMK), 11 items in technological knowledge (TK), 6 items in knowledge of students' understanding (KSU), and 24 items in technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) were developed for the instrument. The construct validity of this instrument was examined through confirmatory factor analysis. After checking the construct structure of the instrument, the multidimensional version of the rating scale model (MRSM) was used to analyze item response data. Results showed that after the elimination of item 17, the 49-item instrument for assessing college students' perceptions of faculty knowledge was validated in the current study. The reliability for each subscale of this instrument was found to be satisfactory when analyzing data with the MRSM model. Discussion of results and recommendations for future research are also provided. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.