Primary School Teachers Cannot Give What They Do Not Get: The Teacher Care Scale

Achieving the goal of education depends essentially on the primary school teachers who will run the system. It is essential to recognize the damage that the teaching profession can cause to teachers and to provide them with care services. This study aims to develop the "Teacher Care Scale (TeCaS)" for teachers. The scale was gradually applied to two separate sample groups, consisting of a total of 620 randomly selected people. To ensure the content and face validity, the scale, with 33 items, was carried out by consulting expert opinions in the first application. Following the factor extraction method (principal axis factoring), the scale items were identified as a result of exploratory factor analysis for construct validity. As a result of the factor analysis, a nested structure consisting of 25 items and six factors was obtained, parallel to the literature. The results of confirmatory factor analysis on the data showed that the sample to which the scale was applied demonstrated compliance at an acceptable level. This scale revealed the structure of teacher care. Clarifying the complex professional care situations of teachers will be useful in understanding the teacher variable, which is the fundamental component of the education system.