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OMNES: The Journal of Multicultural Society - Vol. 12 , No. 2
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OMNES: The Journal of Multicultural Society - Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 69-89
ISSN: 2093-5498 (Print)
Print publication date 31 Jul 2022
Received 29 Jun 2022 Revised 16 Jul 2022 Accepted 26 Jul 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14431/omnes.2022.07.12.2.69

A Study of the Development and Validation of the Multicultural Empathy Scale for Pre-Service Early Childhood Teacher
Jihye Choi
University of Eulji, Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the Multicultural Empathy Scale for pre-service early childhood teachers. To this end, a study was conducted involving 227 university students majoring in early childhood education in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Preliminary questions were composed by reviewing existing measures for empathy and multicultural empathy through the analysis of previous studies. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, a multicultural empathy scale of 16 items with 4 factors was developed. The sub-factors of the multicultural empathy scale are multicultural emotional expression, multicultural attitude, embracing multicultural differences, and multicultural empathy awareness. As a result of analysis of the internal correlation of the scale, the sub-factors were closely related to each other, and the criterion validity with the basic empathy scale was also found to be appropriate. The reliability was found to be high at .91. Through this, it was confirmed that the multicultural empathy scale developed in this study is a reliable and valid scale. Suggestions for follow-up studies and the significance of this study are discussed.

Keywords: Multicultural Empathy, Reliability, Validity, Pre-service early childhood teacher
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Biographical Note

Jihye, Choi Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education, Eulji University, Korea. Her current research focuses on wellbeing, emotion, and sustainable behavior. Email: jiheych@eulji.ac.kr

 

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