1. Introduction

Education is a process of constant formation, regardless of the place where it is carried out; in this way, Colombia tends to develop educational models that derive an integral conceptualization of the person, strengthening the personal, cultural, social, and political spheres of all the agents involved in the educational system. Contributing to the development of students is only a small part of the type of service that teachers offer to the community in general, through the moral, intellectual and physical orientation of students. In the same way, mental health is influenced in academic environments, and education should give importance and awareness to these issues (Angarita-Ortiz et al., 2020; Carrillo-Sierra and Quintero, 2020). In this sense, it is important to guarantee an adequate provision of services, ensuring the necessary environment for the access and stability of children and adolescents in the school system, as one of the various meritorious actions during their work exercise (Beltrán et al., 2012; Padrós-Blázquez et al., 2018).

Among the various problems that can arise in the educational sector, a characteristic of the students stands out that must be perceived by the educators to implement useful intervention strategies when including the students in the classroom, without affecting their behavior. In this way, it is relevant to highlight that reference is made to the prevalence of cases with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the classroom (Domínguez-Lara and Merino-Soto, 2015; Rivera, 2016; Carrillo-Sierra et al., 2018).

Teachers must be trained to be able to deal with situations in which a disorder such as ADHD is present, to achieve inclusive education in the classroom (González-Gómez and Carrillo-Sierra, 2018). Among the studies with the highest academic trajectory is that developed by Barkley (2014), who has published documents from 1998 to the last edition in 2014. The information that the author refers to regarding ADHD is the following: it is considered a disorder of chronic nature; the report states that between 50 and 80% of children with ADHD continue to present symptoms related to the disorder in adolescence. Therefore, it is important to identify the problem as early as possible to implement effective interventions to improve the quality of life of these children. However, for the successful development of any type of intervention, it is essential that the actors involved in the process of interaction with the children, such as parents, classmates, and teachers, have sufficient knowledge of the subject (Mellado et al., 2015; Fenollar-Cortés et al., 2016; Miranda et al., 2018).

For this reason, it is appropriate to select teachers as the central actors of this instrument, specifying the importance of the level of knowledge they can present about ADHD, which is of great relevance in identifying the behaviors typical of the disorder in young children, since they are the ones who can observe, over a long period, a large number of behaviors that children perform in structured situations, such as academic activities, and unstructured situations, such as play (Ochoa, 2018). Another point for which teachers are considered a key population is that they are the ones who are in daily contact with different groups of students, which would facilitate the establishment of comparative analyses between students of the same age. Finally, the fact that teachers are aware of ADHD would allow them to alert the work teams involved in the educational system to which they are attached, to promote specific workshops for the needs of their students (Expósito, 2016).

Therefore, the construction of a scale that allows measuring the level of knowledge of teachers on this topic becomes an imperative task (Hernández and Hernández, 2015; Moreno et al., 2018). For this purpose, it is necessary to consider that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood and whose main symptoms are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Etiologically, this disorder originates from neurobiological to environmental factors, with children and adolescents with ADHD being the ones with the highest risk of facing academic difficulties and suffering from affective, anxiety, and behavioral disorders (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2014).

Considering the above, an instrument must be validated using multivariate statistical methods, based on having the psychometric quality instrument that allows the evaluation of the knowledge and pedagogical practice of teachers against inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity behaviors applied in contexts schoolchildren from Cúcuta, Norte de Santander. Therefore, said instrument must condense the inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, pedagogical, and didactic relationship subscales, as will be discussed later (Carrillo-Sierra et al., 2018).

It refers to an individual’s inability to maintain attention in various activities for long periods, including school and leisure activities. Among the key points for its detection are usually errors in the execution or completion of such actions, such as organizing tasks, execution time, not following instructions, and avoiding any type of exercise that requires mental effort (APA, 2014; Barkley, 2014; Morales-Hidalgo et al., 2017; DuPaul et al., 2018).

1.1. Inattention

It refers to an individual’s inability to maintain attention in various activities for long periods, including school and leisure activities. Among the key points for its detection are usually errors in the execution or completion of such actions, such as organizing tasks, execution time, not following instructions, and avoiding any type of exercise that requires mental effort (APA, 2014; Barkley, 2014; Morales-Hidalgo et al., 2017; DuPaul et al., 2018).

1.2. Hyperactivity

This section refers to when the individual usually gets a lot of energy and therefore cannot regulate himself; this aspect is reflected in people who play with their hands and feet, squirm in their seats, constantly get up from their seats, or move indoors from a place where they are expected to remain seated, in addition to being excessively eloquent (APA, 2014; Barkley, 2014; Richarte et al., 2017).

1.3. Impulsive

It includes those impulsive behaviors that are usually evident in individuals, such as answering questions before they are finished, making it difficult for them to take turns during daily activities in class; they usually interrupt and disrupt other people’s conversations, in addition to using their classmates’ things or the classroom teacher’s teaching tools without waiting for the owner’s approval or permission (APA, 2014; Barkley, 2014; Morales-Hidalgo et al., 2017; DuPaul et al., 2018; Moreno et al., 2018).

1.4. Pedagogical Relationship

It refers to the bond that teachers develop with their students; this component consists of the acquisition of knowledge of various kinds, such as the identification of behavioral patterns of their students. The construction of this relationship stems from the relational aspects of the teaching-learning dynamic, allowing closeness, respect, and authority during the teacher’s work practice (Hernández and Hernández, 2015; Salamanca et al., 2016; Morales-Hidalgo, 2017).

1.5. Didactics

This section focuses on the identification of the behavioral patterns of greater predilection in teachers during the construction of activities that allow students a greater appropriation of the teaching-learning process, from a paradigm of inclusion and participation of different potentialities of the students (Ruedas, 2016; Eugenio-Gozalbo and Aragón, 2016; Estévez and León, 2015).

After developing a brief conceptualization of the dimensions, we proceed to annex the construction of the instrument that will be used in educational contexts in the city of Cúcuta, considering its reliability for the identification of knowledge and pedagogical practices of teachers against ADHD.

2. Methodology

The present investigation is of a quantitative, non-experimental approach, of an exploratory design, with a cross-section. Population of teachers attached to the Municipal Secretary of Education, sample by proportional allocation. The data will be processed in SPSS 22 by applying exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) based on reliability and Cronbach’s alpha reproducibility, test-retest with Lin’s intraclass correlation coefficient, and the kappa index Cohen.

2.1. Population and sample

The concept of population refers to the set of units that make up the group to be studied in the research (Hernández et al., 2010). In this case, the instrument is to be validated with teachers from the public sector in the city of Cúcuta, Norte de Santander. The total population was made up of 579 teachers (N=579 teachers) since the number of these varies by school, the sampling was applied stratified by proportional allocation, so that each of the samples obtained is proportional to the size of the stratum, accordingly, all units have the same probability of being selected. Table 1 presents a sample calculated with the equation belonging to probabilistic sampling by proportional allocation, which assigns a representative sample according to the proportion of each stratum (College) (Hernández et al., 2010).

Table 1
Sample

2.2. Information collection techniques and instruments

The data collection was carried out with the scale of knowledge and pedagogical practice of teachers against the scale of knowledge and pedagogical practice of teachers with students with inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness - CPIHI (Rivera-Porras et al., 2019), formed according to the following operationalization of the variable:

Table 2
Operationalization of the variable

Data were processed in SPSS using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) based on reliability and Cronbach’s alpha reproducibility, test-retest with Lin’s intraclass correlation coefficient and Cohen’s kappa index.

3. Results

To carry out the process of typing and standardizing the scale, the procedure was divided into two phases: The first was related to the reliability of the instrument and the elimination of items that were not considered necessary; the second was to validate the factorial structure of the scale.

Table 3
Reliability

To calculate the reliability, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used for each dimension and globally. It was found that the dimensions of inattention (α 0.85) and didactics (α 0.83), and in general the global scale (α 0.93) have a very high level, while the dimensions of hyperactivity (α 0.78), impulsivity (α 0.76), and pedagogical relationship (α 0.73) have a high level. This indicates that the scale does not show a significant variation between the interrelationships of the items.

In reviewing Table 4, it was determined that it is not necessary to eliminate any of the items, as doing so would not significantly improve the structure of the model, but rather would be detrimental to the structure of the same.

Table 4
Reliability through dimensions and reagents

Once the reliability process was completed, we proceeded to determine which of the items were related to each other to determine its internal consistency. It was found that all the items are significantly related (p<0.05) (see Table 5), which indicates that the test has a high internal consistency, leaving evidence of adequate relationship between the items.

Table 5
Correlations matrix

After verifying reliability and internal consistency, we proceeded to confirm the factorial structure. However, before proceeding, the population assumptions were verified through the KMO test and Bartlett’s sphericity. Table 6 shows that, according to both tests, the factorial analysis can be applied (KMO 0.81; Bartlett’s sphericity, p 0.00).

Table 6
KMO and Bartlett Test

When examining the communalit and extraction indices (Table 7), it was found that the component Inattention contributes 78%; the component Hyperactivity contributes 85%; the component Impulsivity contributes 77%; the component Pedagogical Relationship contributes 82%, and the component Didactics contributes 85% to the proposed model.

Table 7
Community and extraction indices

After identifying the commonalities and the extraction, we proceeded to identify the total variance explained to clarify the model through the proposed structure. It was found that through the two components initially proposed, it is possible to explain 81.45 of the total variances (see Table 8 and Figure 1). This makes it clear that the initial proposed factorial structure adapts to the applied population criteria.

Table 8
Total explained variance

Figure 1
Sedimentation chart
Source: SPSS.

After verifying the components, the factorial structure of the model was verified; in the initial solution, only one component was identified to explain the variance, composed of the five dimensions. However, when the varimax components were rotated using Kaiser normalization, it was found that component 1 was formed by the dimensions: Inattention, Hyperactivity, and Impulsivity, thus forming the factor Knowledge; in terms of component 2, it was formed by the dimensions: Pedagogical and Didactic Relationship, forming the factor Pedagogical Practices (see Tables 9 and 10).

Table 9
Core Component Matrix, Initial Solution

Table 10
Matrix of rotated components (Varimax with Kaiser normalization)

Finally, the factor structure was verified by confirmatory factor analysis (Figure 2). It was found that the final scale consisted of 32 items divided into two factors; the first was called Knowledge and consisted of the dimensions: Inattention (factor load: 0.83; 8 items), Hyperactivity (factor load: 0.85; 4 items), and Impulsivity: 0.82; 3 items); the second factor was called: Pedagogical Practice and was composed of the dimensions: Pedagogical Relationship (factor load: 0.86; 8 items) and Didactics (factor load: 0.79; 9 items).

Figure 2
CPIHI structural equation model
Source: AMOS.

This structure was also verified by the goodness and fit indices of the model, and it was found that, at the level of comparative fit, it satisfies the Comparative Goodness of Fit Index (CFI 0.99), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI 0.96), the Normalized Fit Index (NFI 0.98), and, at the level of parsimonious fit it satisfies the Parsimony-corrected Normalized Fit Index (PNFI 0.39). At the level of parsimony adjustment, it corresponds to the Parsimony-corrected Normalized Adjustment Index (PNFI 0.39); and at the level of other indices, it corresponds to the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI 0.98) and the Root of the Mean Square Residual (RMR 0.29) (see Table 11). This indicates that the initially proposed factorial structure meets the criteria of the structural model.

Table 11
Structural model goodness and fit Indices

4. Discussion and Conclusions

In the Latin American context, the importance of teachers in identifying the learning difficulties of their students and how this may be related to disorders such as ADHD is explored in works such as Balbi et al. (2017), who are responsible for carrying out the most exhaustive work on the subject. Thus, the design and construction of a self-report test to identify the presence of ADHD in students from the Chilean context implies work focused on the consolidation of scales that allow obtaining the most information on the subject (San Nicolás and Iraurgi, 2016).

On the other hand, Salas-Bravo et al. (2017) attempted to design an optimal performance test, focusing on teachers as the population to be evaluated, based on their knowledge of students and the years they had developed this work, to correlate whether their competence in the subject was related to the cases of students who presented ADHD as well as those who did not. Subsequently, Ramos and Pérez-Salas (2016) tried to design a self-report test to identify the presence of ADHD in Ecuadorian students.

In the national context, Salamanca et al. (2016) were responsible for developing a correlational study between the coordination disorder with ADHD of the problem demonstrated in a particular region, where again teachers become key actors for the description of information relevant to the case. Rincón and Rey (2017) made an adaptation of an instrument responsible for the assessment of ADHD; however, its applicability focuses only on the child population, leaving out the actor who is the object of interest in this work (Morales-Hidalgo et al., 2017; DuPaul et al., 2018).

In relation to the current study, the process of classification and standardization of the scale has shown that it presents an overall high level of reliability; therefore, there is no significant variation in the interrelationship of the items; the removal of any reagent would disfavor the test structure. In the same way, the test presents a high internal consistency, which verifies the adequate relationship between the items. 81.45% of the total variance is explained by the two components initially proposed, so the proposed factorial structure adapts to the population criteria applied. Thus, Component 1 was composed of the dimensions: Inattention, Hyperactivity, and Impulsivity, which make up the Knowledge factor; and Component 2 was made up of the dimensions: Pedagogical and Didactic Relationship, which constitute the Pedagogical Practices factor. Likewise, the verification of the factorial structure shows that the initially proposed factorial structure meets the criteria of the structural model.

Therefore, it is valid to affirm that the scale of knowledge and pedagogical practice of teachers compared to schoolchildren with inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness - CPIHI, has the pertinent psychometric properties for use in Colombian school contexts.

Interest conflict

The authors of this article declare that they have no conflict of interest regarding the work presented.

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