While mental health challenges in the classroom have increased over the past several years, existing research suggests that many educators feel unprepared to broach the topics of mental health and mental illness with their students. This paper outlines the development and gathering of preliminary evidence of validity for two new scales designed to assess teachers’ confidence and worries related to delivering mental health content in the classroom. Content evidence was collected through the use of two methods: a focus group held with members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, and a consensus survey conducted among a sample of educational experts recruited from an Ontario university. Internal structure evidence was derived from the initial intake survey of an evaluation of a new online guide designed to give elementary school teachers the tools and knowledge to develop lesson plans related to mental health. Internal consistency reliability of test scores was estimated with Cronbach’s alpha. Both scales loaded on a single dimension with all items loading strongly (factor loadings greater than .60). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .96 for scores on the Teacher Confidence Scale and .93 for scores on the What Worries Me Scale estimated strong internal consistency reliability. We identified two unidimensional scales measuring concerns educators may have about discussing the topic of mental health in a classroom setting. The Teacher Confidence Scale for Delivering Mental Health Content contains 12 items measuring educators’ confidence in delivering mental health related materials in the classroom. The What Worries Me Scale contains 11 items. These scales may be useful for evaluating programs, educational workshops, and other initiatives aimed at improving teachers’ abilities to provide mental health content in the classroom.

中文翻译：

---

两种新量表的验证证据的初步分析，用于评估教师对在课堂上提供心理健康内容的信心和后顾之忧

在过去的几年中，尽管课堂上的心理健康挑战有所增加，但现有研究表明，许多教育工作者感到自己不准备与学生一起探讨心理健康和精神疾病的话题。本文概述了两个新量表的有效性初步证据的发展和收集，这两个新量表旨在评估教师对在课堂上提供心理健康内容的信心和后顾之忧。内容证据是通过两种方法收集的：与安大略省初级教师联合会成员举行的焦点小组会议，以及对从安大略省大学招募的教育专家样本进行的共识调查。内部结构证据来自对新在线指南的评估的初始摄入量调查，该指南旨在为小学教师提供制定与心理健康有关的教学计划的工具和知识。使用Cronbach's alpha评估测试分数的内部一致性可靠性。两种比例尺都在单个维度上加载，所有项目都强烈加载（因子加载大于.60）。教师信心量表的Cronbachα系数为0.96，而“我担心什么”量表的Cronbach系数为0.93，这说明内部一致性很强。我们确定了两个一维量表，用于衡量教育工作者在讨论课堂环境中的心理健康问题时可能会关心的问题。提供心理健康内容的教师信心量表包含12个项目，用于衡量教育者对在课堂上提供心理健康相关材料的信心。“什么让我担心”量表包含11个项目。这些量表对于评估计划，教育研讨会和其他旨在提高教师在课堂上提供心理健康内容的能力的计划可能有用。