oai:eurokd.com:article/2135 2026-05-29

Development and Validation of the Language Teachers’ Empathy Skills Scale Volume 54 Nader Matinsadr Mohammad Nikkhah Zahra Zohoorian Empathy Skills Language Teachers Validation Scale Development <p style="text-align: justify;">Understanding others&rsquo; feelings and thoughts and responding to them properly is called empathy and it is one of the fundamental features of language teachers. Despite the recognized significance of empathy in language teaching, there is currently a lack of a standardized scale to measure empathy skills specifically in the context of language education. Based on a sequential mixed methods design, at the first phase of the study a pool of 70 items was developed based on the literature. Expert views and face and content validity procedure reduced them to 23. A number of 255 English language teachers participated in the second phase of the study. Exploratory factor analysis was employed. Three sub constructs labeled as Emotional Attunement Skills, Active Listening Skill, and Perspective-taking Skill were found for the remaining 15 items. The findings revealed that the valid and reliable scale can be safely used to assess empathy skills.</p> Language Teaching Research Quarterly 2026-05-29 Text https://api.eurokd.com/Uploads/Article/2135/ltrq.2026.54.11.pdf https://doi.org/10.32038/ltrq.2026.54.11 en Pages 259–284