Psychometric Properties of the Autism Early Interventionist Self-Efficacy Scale among Preschool Teachers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Early intervention programs for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are primarily implemented by preschool teachers in national preschools in Malaysia. While the initial evidence supports Early Interventionist Self-Efficacy Scale’s reliability and validity in assessing self-efficacy among early intervention practitioners, there is limited research on its application among preschool teachers. Thus, this study was conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the adapted version of 15-item Autism Early Interventionist Self-Efficacy Scale (AEISES) among a sample of Malaysian national preschool teachers (N = 169) who implement early intervention programs for children with ASD. The exploratory factor analysis extracted a two-factor solution for AEISES which resulted in the retention of 13 items. These factors were named Personal Intervention Efficacy (PIE) and General Intervention Efficacy (GIE). Results from the confirmatory factor analysis also indicated that the two-factor structure fits well with the data (?2/df=2.091, CFI=0.980, RMSEA=0.080). The internal consistency of the scale was found to be excellent (? = 0.916). The results of this study showed that the AEISES is a reliable and valid instrument for identifying self-efficacy among national preschool teachers in implementing early intervention programs for children with ASD in Malaysia.