Development of the Democratic Education Environment Scale

Today, the aim of raising individuals equipped with democratic values and behaviors in democratic countries, as well as the definition of an education environment sensitive to human rights and democracy as a human right under international conventions, has increased the importance of democratic education and research in this area. This study aims at developing a scale for the evaluation of the democratic education environment at classroom level, including all in-class processes and structures, based on teacher perceptions. A mixed-method design was employed in this study. This scale was applied to two different samples of 417 and 1091 teachers working in primary, middle and high schools. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were carried out to determine the construct validity of the scale, convergent validity was evaluated, while test-retest, Cronbach Alpha, and split half methods were used to evaluate its reliability. The results of these analyses indicate that the 3-factor, 75-item Democratic Education Environment Scale is valid and reliable. 2013 IOJES. All rights reserved