Mokken Scale Analysis

While the issue of intercultural competence has received considerable attention in second language learning and teaching over recent decades, the lack of a practical, valid, and dependable instrument to cross-culturally measure intercultural competence is strongly felt. For this reason, the current study aimed at developing and validating an inventory to examine EFL learners’ intercultural competence within the context of Iran. Following a qualitative-quantitative descriptive method research design, an instrument consisting of items adapted from intercultural competence-based survey instruments was generated. Accordingly, the study recruited 200 Iranian EFL learners to fill out the inventory. Furthermore, nine Iranian university professors in Applied Linguistics received an earlier draft of the Intercultural Competence Inventory (ICI) after it was prepared. The experts were requested to provide feedback on the developed Inventory’ content and face validity. After expert/content validation, the construct validity of the inventory was checked using R software running Mokken Scale Analysis. The analyses aimed to determine the structure of the inventory and verify the effectiveness of a five-point Likert response scale. The results concerning item attributes and the quality of the response scale provided confirmation of the scale's internal validity. Hopefully, the presence of this inventory in the Iranian context, characterized by strong internal consistency, internal validity, and construct validity, can contribute valuable insights to the study of intercultural competence among language learners.

This study examines collegiality among Iranian EFL teachers by developing and validating the EFL Teacher Collegiality Scale (ETCS) through Mokken Scale Analysis (MSA). Collegiality, which we often understand as mutual respect, teamwork, and shared responsibility, is widely acknowledged as essential for promoting positive school environments and supporting teachers’ well-being. Specifically, collegiality supports teacher well-being, operationalized as job satisfaction, lower emotional exhaustion/burnout, and stronger professional efficacy. In Iran’s educational context, specific challenges make promoting teacher collaboration more difficult. To fill an important gap in the existing research, this study introduces a culturally adapted, reliable instrument designed to measure collegiality within this context. A cross-sectional survey using a 30-item ETCS was administered online to collect data from 170 teachers from various educational backgrounds. The ETCS is organized into three main areas: collaborative practice, professional support and mentorship, and shared professional development. The development process of the ETCS instrument involved expert review and back translation. Analysis showed that the scale has strong scalability and internal consistency, with high Mokken H coefficients across all subscales. The findings indicate that strong collegiality boosts teacher satisfaction, supports retention, and builds professional networks. Finally, this study provides practical strategies and a validated tool to improve EFL teacher collaboration and highlights online collegiality in remote or hybrid settings as a key topic for future research.