Abstract

Teacher support plays a pivotal role in students’ academic development, particularly among minority migrant adolescents who face unique educational and sociocultural challenges. Despite its importance, limited research has validated teacher support measures within this specific population. This pilot study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Teacher Support Scale, developed by Ouyang Dan (2005), among Chinese minority migrant adolescents. The findings contribute to the existing literature and highlight the necessity for tailored support systems that address the distinct needs of these students. Such insights could inform the development of effective interventions to enhance educational outcomes for minority migrant adolescents. A cross-sectional design was implemented with a sample of 150 ninth-grade students from 12 randomly selected junior high schools in Lanzhou, Gansu Province. The study focused on evaluating the content validity, construct validity, and internal consistency reliability of the scale. Content validity was established through expert review, with I-CVI values ranging from 0.800 to 1.000 and Kappa coefficients indicating moderate to high agreement. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) confirmed a three-factor structure (learning support, emotional support, and competence support) that explained 79.12% of the total variance. All subscales demonstrated excellent internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas above 0.90. These findings suggest that the 19-item Teacher Support Scale demonstrates acceptable preliminary psychometric properties for assessing perceived teacher support among Chinese minority migrant adolescents. However, because this was a pilot validation study based on exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis should be conducted in future studies with a larger and more diverse sample to further verify the stability of the three-factor structure.