The school-wide cultural competence observation checklist for school counselors: an exploratory factor analysis

Professional School Counseling, April, 2008 by Judith A. Nelson, Rebecca M. Bustamante, Eric D. Wilson, Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie

In Phase 3, using an Internet survey format, 151 participating school leaders were asked to rate how important they found each checklist item to be in assessing school-wide cultural competence and how they would categorize each item. Individual items are listed as they were worded on the survey in Table 1. Evaluators or observers were asked to rate each SCCOC item on a 4-point Likert-format scale anchored by 1 (strongly agree) and 4 (strongly disagree). A 4-point Likert-format scale (i.e., forced-choice scale) was used rather than a 5-point Likert-format scale (i.e., including a midpoint response option such as "neutral" or "don't know"), because inclusion of the midpoint response option also can lead to erratic, seemingly random responses around the midpoint in an effort to supply a response and leave a favorable impression (Swearingen, 1999). Further, selection of the midpoint option can provide ambiguous information because it could imply "neutral," "don't know," "don't care," or "no opinion" (Weems & Onwuegbuzie, 2001).

Internet questionnaires were completely anonymous and confidential. The SCCOC was transferred to an Intemet format by one of the researchers and e-mailed by the survey company (www.freeonline surveys.com) to school leaders in two Western U.S. states. Due to the impossibility of knowing exactly how many people actually received the e-mail with the link to the SCCOC, the response rate could not accurately be calculated.

Analysis

To examine the (score) construct-related validity of the SCCOC, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. An exploratory factor analysis is a method that is commonly used to assess the (score) construct-related validity--specifically, the structural validity--of a scale containing closed-ended items. Exploratory factor analysis is often used in the behavioral sciences in the early stages of research to explore how a set of variables, particularly latent variables, are related (Field, 2005). The exploratory factor analyst's goal is to understand better the internal structure of an instrument when insufficient information is available about the data structure (Onwuegbuzie & Daniel, 2003). More specifically, in the present study, the exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the number of factors underlying the 33 items on the SCCOC. As recommended by Kieffer (1999) and Onwuegbuzie and Daniel, the correlation matrix was used to undertake the exploratory factor analysis.

RESULTS

The presentation of the results is divided into three sections. In the first section, the pre-exploratory factor analysis findings are delineated. The goal of this section is to describe the pre-analysis considerations that were made to ensure that any participants who did not appear to have a complete set of credible and valid responses were removed from the exploratory factor analysis. In the second section, the exploratory factor analysis findings are presented. These findings revealed important information for professional school counselors regarding the construct of school-wide cultural competence. In particular, we specify how many scales were contained within the SCCOC. In the final section, we present a summary of the findings.