Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Psychometric Validation of the Emotional Literacy Skills Scale for International Chinese Teachers

Abstract

This study aims to adapt and test the reliability and validity of the Emotional Literacy Skills (ELS) Scale for international Chinese teachers working in multicultural settings. A total of 503 valid questionnaires were collected from teachers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. The research used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the structure of the scale and calculated Cronbach's α to test internal consistency. The overall reliability of the scale was excellent (α = 0.956). The KMO value was 0.955, and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (χ² = 18,574.086, df = 3,321, p < .001), confirming that the data were suitable for factor analysis. After extracting the principal components using varimax rotation, nine factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 were identified, explaining 49.51% of the total variance. All item loadings were above 0.50, and most communalities were above 0.40, indicating strong structural validity. The results indicate that the revised ELS Scale is reliable, interpretable, and culturally suitable for international Chinese teachers in various Southeast Asian countries. The paper provides a localized measurement tool that can enhance teacher development programs and inform future confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) studies.