Development of the Scale of 21st Century Learning and Innovation Skills in Learning English: A Validity and Reliability Study

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to develop a valid and reliable assessment tool to determine students’ perceptions of their “21st century learning and innovation skills” in learning English. An item pool was prepared by conducting a literature review and the items were rearranged in line with expert and student opinions. Thus, a scale form with 42 items was created. The scale form was administered to a study group consisting of 307 7th grade students attending secondary schools affiliated with the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education in Aksaray province in the spring semester of the 2024-2025 academic year. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted with the data obtained. As a result of EFA, it was determined that the scale consists of 31 items and 4 sub-dimensions, which are respectively “Collaboration”, “Critical Thinking”, “Communication” and “Creativity”. There are 11 items in the “Collaboration” sub-dimension, 9 in the “Critical Thinking” sub-dimension, 5 in the “Communication” sub-dimension and 6 in the “Creativity” sub-dimension. The items have factor loadings above 0.45. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient for the overall scale is 0.912. The reliability coefficients for the sub-dimensions are 0.871, 0.855, 0.916 and 0.806, respectively. The sub-dimensions explain 54% of the total variance. The results indicate that the developed Scale of 21st Century Learning and Innovation Skills in Learning English possesses required psychometric properties.