The validity and reliability of a tool for measuring educational innovative thinking competencies

The study’s purpose was to develop a valid and reliable tool for measuring innovative thinking competencies with reference to education. The tool development was guided by the cognitive, experiential, and sociocultural theories. The validity and reliability of the tool were established using quantitative methods through three main stages: Content validity by inter-rater agreement; Construct validity by principle component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis; Concurrent validity by correlations between scales. The participants were ten educators and 743 preservice teachers from two higher education institutions. The findings produced a tool for measuring educational innovative thinking competencies in the context of teacher education. •Preservice teachers are a key for imparting the valued competencies of innovation.•A tool for measuring innovative thinking in the field of education is presented.•A three-stage of validity analysis was executed: content, construct, and concurrent.•The tool contains 17 items grouped into four main categories of competencies.•The main categories are: observing, questioning, idea networking, and experimenting.