Teachers’ participation in professional learning communities is beneficial to their professional growth and teaching effectiveness and provides teaching practice. Encouraging teachers’ professional learning community participation, improving their professional skills, and promoting their professional development have become the focus of education research in Taiwan. Because the needs of teachers of different levels and at different schools vary, teachers should undergo professional development to enhance their teaching and management skills. Most of the professional learning community scale tools used are designed from the perspective of school management, and their development dimensions mostly address how to operate a professional learning community or measure the effectiveness of professional community operation. This is understandable because schools support teachers professionally. However, few professional learning community scales have been developed from the perspective of teachers as individuals. This research gap warrants attention. This study investigated the degree of individual teachers’ authentic participation in professional learning communities; this investigation was conducted because the positive assessment of some school communities is based on the efforts and contribution of few members or the community convener and not on those of group members. Thus, this research designed the Teachers’ Participation in Professional Learning Communities Scale as a practical tool to measure the degree of participation from the perspective of individual teachers.

Many theories offer varied perspectives on professional learning communities; however, few have been adapted after deeper research and literature reviews. Four theorical frameworks exist that were suitable to contribute to this research. This study was based primarily on the integration of learning organizations, cooperative learning, social construction theory, situational learning theory, and practice community theory. The unique aspects of these theories were used to develop four scale dimensions, namely collaboration, observation and sharing, reflection and feedback, and participation in action. To confirm the suitability of the scale, 11 experts and scholars of professional learning communities were invited to evaluate its validity and appropriateness.

Afterward, the invited experts and scholars assessed the adequacy of the assessment dimensions and their respective items. For items deemed inappropriate, the experts and scholars provided suggestions for adjustment. They also corrected and edited the language of sections of the items. The purpose of these measures was to establish the content validity and expert validity of the scale.

This study enrolled 207 elementary school teachers in Tainan, Taiwan, who were invited to join professional learning communities. In the first survey stage, intentional sampling was employed; 183 teachers provided valid questionnaires, of which 59 were men and 122 were women. Analysis indicated three common factors, and 26 questions were selected for further analysis. Following an expert assessment and analysis, the scale’s original four dimensions were reduced to three. The study revealed that collaboration, observation, and sharing overlapped considerably. Thus, these factors were combined and renamed as cooperative sharing. This factor was investigated using 14 questions with an explained variance of 27.13%. The second factor, reflection and feedback, included seven questions with an explained variance of 30.89%. The third factor, participation in action, included five questions with an explained variance of 14.3%. The sum of the explained variance extracted was 72.33%, with 26 questions in the scale. Cooperation and sharing was defined as collaborative exploration and sharing practices when teachers were actively engaged in a learning process in a professional learning community. It also included participation in public lectures, observations and discussion, seminars based on matters related to students’ learning, further dialogue regarding teaching practice, and the exchange of opinions. Reflective feedback was defined as teachers who participated in a learning community thinking about their teaching needs and potential teaching areas to improve and providing appropriate feedback to their peers. Participation was defined as the frequency of and involvement in authentic participation by teachers in professional learning communities.

During the second stage of distribution of the questionnaire, 467 formal samples were employed for confirmatory factor, convergent validity, discriminant validity, sex, and community identity analyses. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the three-factor measurement model of the Teachers’ Participation in Professional Learning Communities Scale was applicable to both male and female teachers and teachers who participated in different types of communities. Finally, independent sample single-factor multivariate analysis indicated no difference in the degree of teachers’ participation on the basis of sex. The Teachers’ Participation in Professional Learning Communities Scale developed in this study is an evidence-based measurement tool that can be employed in future research and administration.

The main purpose of this research was to construct a scale for elementary school teachers who participate in professional learning communities. Subjects taught differ considerably between elementary and middle schools. Therefore, the applicability of this scale to middle school teachers requires further investigation. Moreover, verification of the factors constructed in this

study using qualitive observation would make this scale more valuable for reference.

The second-order factor model constructed for the scale exhibited a favorable fit, and the scale model exhibited greater cross-sample stability, making it suitable for the analysis and comparison of male and female teachers at elementary schools and teachers in different communities. Analysis also demonstrated differences among teachers in various communities in participation in professional learning communities. The Teachers’ Participation in Professional Learning Communities Scale developed in this study has been applied empirically and can be used to support future research and administration. Teachers’ participation in professional learning communities substantially improves their professional development and teaching effectiveness and provides authentic practice. However, professional learning community scales developed from the perspective of individual teachers are lacking.