Cross-cultural validation of the Educational Context Perception Questionnaire (ECPQ II) in Portugal

The revised version of the Educational Context Perception Questionnaire (ECPQ II) is used to assess six dimensions of the students’ perception of their classroom context: cohesion, didactics, mutual appreciation, psychological insecurity with teachers and classmates and discrimination. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory served as a guide for the definition of the research process and the identification of dimensions to explore. A recent study confirmed the validity and reliability of the ECPQ II. The current study is the first to examine the measurement equivalence of the ECPQ II, by providing a cross-cultural validation of this model and develop a translation and adaptation of the questionnaire for the Portuguese language. The study involved 1429 students enrolled in upper secondary school in Porto (9th and 10th grades). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied and the factor model structure was tested for model fit using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) on the full and half random sample. The six-factors model showed a good fit to the data for both samples. The current research confirmed the factor structure of the measure and showed that the ECPQ II Portuguese version has supportive psychometric properties of validity and reliability.