Design and validation of a scale to evaluate the functioning of tutoring in Secondary Education

Abstract

The development of the tutorial function development is the key for an integral formation of the students. In recent years, research on this topic has been focused on higher education, relegating to a second place its development in basic education. In this sense, the objective of this work is to design and validate a measuring instrument for the assessment of tutorials in Obligatory and Post-obligatory Secondary Education, supported theoretically, that finds the required psychometric characteristics: reliability, homogeneity of the items and validity. The study sample is made up of 4254 students of Compulsory and Post-compulsory Secondary Education corresponding to different types of educational centers in Autonomous Community of Madrid (CAM). As a result of the literature consulted and the professional experience, four dimensions were considered on the tutorial practice where the reliability was analyzed (Alfa of Cronbach total of the instrument: 0.929, and by dimensions, Functions with the students: 0.868; Functions with the families: 0.649; Development: 0.797; Evaluation: 0.876), the values of the discrimination coefficient of the items (data superior to 0.2, according to Hair et al. 2014) and the Confirmatory Factorial Analysis (X2/gl= 0.0254; CFI= 0.940; RMSEA: 0.044; PRATIO=0.894) obtaining satisfactory results. For all these reasons, the proposed instrument contributes to the study of tutorials, both from a theoretical point of view and because of their psychometric characteristics relative to their reliability and validity. Similarly, the instrument constitutes a useful tool in the development of tutorials, meeting the students' demands and needs.