International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 2015, 7 (1), 242-259 © 2015 International Online Journal of Educational Sciences (IOJES) is a publication of Educational Researches and Publications Association (ERPA) www.iojes.net International Online Journal of Educational Sciences ISSN: 1309-2707 Teacher’s Professional Perception as a Predictor of Teacher – Student Friendship in Facebook: A Scale Development Study Buket Akkoyunlu 1 , Gökhan Dağhan 2 and Mukaddes Erdem 3 1,2,3 Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education, Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Ankara, TURKEY ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Received 19.11.2014 Received in revised form 02.12.2014 Accepted 09.12.2014 Available online 01.03.2015 In this study, a scale was developed for providing to make a relation between the tendency and reasons of teachers to add their students as “Friend” on Facebook and their professional perceptions. The study group consists of 158 teachers; 81 of them state that they are “friends” with their students on Facebook and 77 of them state that they are not. The factor structures of the scale were determined through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and the aforementioned theoretical structure was tested through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The results indicate that each sub-scale separates into 4 factors that have an eigenvalue of 1 or above and that they have construct validity and reliability. Depending on the fact that both sub-scales had 4 factors, the aim was to find a common structure among the sub-scales. Regarding the meanings that the related items had, it was found that both sub-scales consisted of sub-factors that could be described as responsibility perception, student perception, professional identity perception and school perception. A secondary- level confirmatory factor analysis was applied to validate the structures that were determined at the sub-scales and to test whether responsibility perception, student perception, professional identity perception and school perception structures inclined to an upper structure, i.e. teaching perception, or not. The findings indicated that both sub-scales had this hierarchical structure and each model had acceptable goodness-of-fit values. The survey developed a structure that had strong psychometrical features and determined that teachers’ interactions with their students on social networks were related to their professional perceptions. © 2015 IOJES. All rights reserved Keywords: 1 Social network, Facebook, teacher-student friendship, teacher’s professional perception Extended Summary Purpose The rate of social network usage is increasing while the age of users is decreasing. This fact indicates that students are under an informal influence which is bigger and more intense than their formal education process. The attitude that is required to be shown against these developments by education side, especially by the teachers has not been made clear or defined yet. This attitude is variable depending on professional perceptions, characters, preferences etc. of teachers. Regarding these conditions, this study developed a scale providing to make a relation between the tendency and reasons of teachers to add their students as “Friend” on Facebook and their professional perceptions. The researcher expects that this scale is going to reveal certain data related to the interactions that will be made between teachers and students in the digital age. Also, the survey aims to contribute to the literature, which contains a limited number of studies in this field. 2 Corresponding author’s address: Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education, Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Çankaya, ANKARA Telephone: 090 312 297 7176 Fax: 090 312 297 7176 e-mail: gokhand@hacettepe.edu.tr DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15345/iojes.2015.01.020