Teacher Autonomy and Collaboration: A Paradox? Conceptualising and Measuring Teachers’ Autonomy and Collaborative Attitude

Autonomy appears to be a central workplace condition for teachers. However, it is often equated to independence and individual work. As we suggest that autonomy in itself does not exclude collaboration, autonomy and attitude towards collaboration or individual work were defined as distinct concepts. This study presents a measurement instrument assessing both classroom autonomy and attitude towards collaboration. The questionnaire was completed by 1706 teachers. This dataset was divided in two random subsets: The first was used to explore the structure of the instrument and the second to confirm the identified structure. Analyses revealed three factors: a collaborative attitude scale and two perceived autonomy scales (didactical-pedagogical and curricular autonomy). Internal consistency was sufficient and convergent and discriminant validity was shown.status: publishe