Design and evaluate psychometric properties of scale to assess students' perception toward online teaching in nursing education: Sequential exploratory study

Background and Aims: Given the scarcity of a valid and reliable tool specially designed to measure perception to online teaching in nursing science students. This study was done with an aim to design and evaluate the psychometric properties of perception to online teaching questionnaire. Methods: The present study was conducted using mixed-method approach in two phases at the Eternal University, in 2020. In first phase, qualitative study was done to explore the students' perception on online teaching. Then, the theme and subtheme were extracted, and initial items were developed through reviewing the literature. In the second phase, total of 384 nursing students who were recruited conveniently participated in the study. Furthermore, the psychometric properties including face, content, and construct validities, test–retest reliability and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), were measured in the second phase. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Analysis of Moment Structure version 23 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) for quantitative data. Results: Four factors were extracted through exploratory factor analysis. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed 28 items in four factors: Ascendancy, snag, technophilia and prerequisites, and these factors explained 61.67% of variances. The Cronbach's alpha and stability of the questionnaire were 0.906 and 0.91, respectively. The discriminant validity and composite reliability of this final model were confirmed. Conclusion: This proposed questionnaire had met at desired standard of reliability and validity making it a useful measurement tool for measuring the perception to online teaching in nursing science students. It could be used for teaching–learning method improvement.