Pilot Testing a Student Assessment Instrument for Outdoor Education Leadership Competencies in Malaysian Teacher Education Institutes

Abstract

This pilot study was conducted with the main objective of evaluating the reliability and initial validity of a newly developed student assessment instrument designed to measure the competencies of outdoor education program leaders in the Malaysian Institute of Teacher Education (IPGM). A purposive sample of 50 Physical Education trainee teachers participated in the study. The instrument consisted of 36 items based on the Brick Wall Model, which encompasses four main domains: foundation skills, hard skills, soft skills, and meta-skills. Data were analysed using SPSS, focusing on internal consistency reliability through Cronbach’s Alpha. Findings indicated that all four domains achieved coefficients above the threshold of 0.70, as recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994). The overall instrument reliability was 0.83, confirming satisfactory to high levels of internal consistency. These results highlight that the instrument is sufficiently robust for use in the main study and contributes to systematic, student-based evaluation of outdoor education leadership competencies within teacher education in Malaysia.