Development and Validation of the Faculty Members’ Academic Optimism Inventory (FMAOI)

This study describes the development and validation of an instrument aimed at measuring the faculty’s academic optimism in higher education. The data were collected from 211 faculty members who graduated from Iranian, Indian, Australian, United States, and British universities. At first, a question pool was developed to operationalize experts’ perceptions about academic optimism in their academic environments. In the second stage, the face and content validity of the scale were examined. Then, a pilot test was deployed to clarify the construct ambit and settled the measure and the meaning of academic optimism, through statistical methods. Then, an exploratory factor analysis was performed on 29 items, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis, which result in an ultimate scale of 23 statements in three factors including professionalism, academic emphasis & collective trust. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was applied and showed a reliable scale (r= 0.83). The final model represented very good fit (GoF =0.73), and the psychometric properties, such as discriminant, convergent and factorial validity, as well as reliability was assessed. Lastly, the implications of this tool for future research directions are discussed.