Abstract:

The capability approach has been operationalized in a wide range of fields such as economics, philosophy, technology and education. In the educational sector, there are many studies that have conceptualized the capability approach in traditional higher education scenarios to foster development of life skills. To our knowledge, there are no studies that have operationalized the capability approach in higher education programs offered online. Thus, the aim of this study is to conceptualize the capability approach for virtual learning scenarios. Specifically, this paper presents a tested and validated questionnaire based on Martha Nussbaum's central human capabilities (life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one's environment) to measure the development of life skills in virtual learning environments. The preliminary validation of the instrument involved a three-stage process. The first stage comprised the creation of an initial pool of items. In this phase, there were qualitative discussions with four experts, who were experienced researchers in the field. The second stage consisted of assessing reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire items by using a Q-sort method. Regarding the Q-sort method, a judge was requested to sort the questionnaire items according to the different constructs, based on which the inter-judge agreement was measured. The questionnaire items that were identified as being too ambiguous were reworded or deleted in an effort to improve the agreement between the next judges. A satisfactory level of agreement was reached after a refinement process done by a total of two judges experienced in the field of the capability approach. The last stage included a pilot study. At this pretesting stage, an analysis of variance approach to content validation was used to double check the reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire items. Regarding the analysis of variance approach, a sample of doctoral and postdoctoral fellows experienced in eLearning scenarios rated each of the questionnaire items on the extent to which they believed the items were consistent with each of the constructs presented. Analysis of variance revealed that the items were properly included in the proposed theoretical constructs. Future studies will validate the proposed instrument using a significant sample of online students and confirmatory factor analysis.

Keywords:

Analysis of variance, Higher education, Life skills, Online scenarios, Q-sort method.