Development and validation of the Instructional Design Self-Efficacy Scale

Atabek O.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION, cilt.10, sa.2, ss.1-35, 2026 (ESCI)

Özet

Instructional design is a central professional competence for teachers, yet no psychometric instrument has specifically measured teachers’ self-efficacy for performing instructional design tasks. This study developed and validated the Instructional Design Self-Efficacy Scale (IDSES), a 14-item instrument designed to assess teachers’ beliefs in their capability to successfully analyze instructional problems, design appropriate solutions, develop instructional resources, and evaluate and revise instruction. The study involved 2,232 participants, including 1,649 in-service teachers and 583 preservice teachers. Study 1 examined the factor structure of the scale through exploratory factor analysis (Cronbach’s α=0.946), and Study 2 evaluated the resulting model through confirmatory factor analysis showing very good model fit. IDSES scores were strongly correlated with Design Self-Efficacy among both in-service and preservice teachers, supporting convergent validity. Supplementary and exploratory analyses indicated that the one-factor structure was broadly plausible across in-service and preservice teachers, 23 in-service teacher subject-matter groups, a Psychological Counseling and Guidance professional group, and eight preservice teacher education programs. Contextual analyses suggested that design-related experiences, such as lesson planning, educational-content production, and online-learning-environment contribution, were associated with stronger instructional design self-efficacy. The IDSES provides a domain-specific instrument for future research on teacher education, professional development, instructional design competence, and technology- or AI-supported instruction, contexts that were not directly assessed in the present study.