Validation of a scale of attention to diversity for university teachers

Abstract

It is the job of universities to face the greatest challenges of highereducation in the twenty-first century. Creating policies and practices to attendto diversity is part of their social responsibility. Validated instruments areessential to find out teachers’ attitudes and practices in education regardingattention to diversity. This paper aims to present the process of constructionand validation of the Scale of Beliefs, Attitudes and Practices of Attentionto Diversity for University Teachers (CAPA-PU) created for this purpose. Asurvey method with a non-experimental design was applied to a sample of 428teachers from various Spanish universities. To validate this scale, analysis ofthe content and construct preceded the selected items in the ad hoc instrumentin order to reach the representativeness of the construct. A review of theliterature on attention to diversity, especially instrument design, informedof the definition of the construct and its dimensions, representativeness,relevance, comprehension, ambiguity and clarity. In addition, reliable internalconsistency and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed a fittedmodel and a five-factor structure: (1) Institutional Diversity; (2) Research,Training and Teaching Focused on Diversity; (3) Teaching and LearningPractices; (4) University Administrators’ Commitment; (5) Conception ofDiversity. In conclusion, it is evident that there is: a) current relevance of theassumed construct of attention to diversity focused on actions that providelearning opportunities to the most disadvantaged groups; and b) the need tooffer a scale such as the one created in order to attend to the processes ofeducational inclusion in Spanish universities.