The Self-Empowerment Index

Purpose: To measure teachers’ internal sense of autonomy and how teachers express their autonomy to others.

Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013164493053003017

Short description: This is an instrument designed to measures teachers’ internal sense of autonomy and how teachers express their autonomy to others. This measures 3 factors: 1) teachers having the courage to take risks in saying and doing what they think and feel is important; 2) teachers being reflective by admitting their mistakes and being willing to learn from criticism and from others who have different ideas from themselves; and 3) teachers having an internal sense of autonomy.

Sample questions: 

Statement A represents the self-empowered statement. Statement B represents the non-self-empowered statement.

A: I am satisfied with the internal feeling of accomplishment for a job well done.

B: I look forward to receiving external rewards when I have done a good job.

Paid or free: Unknown.

Reliability/validity measures: Although further research is needed on the SEI, the index appears to demonstrate sufficient internal consistency and factorial validity to suggest the promise of future use.

Reliability: α = .77 for internal self-empowerment index (ISEI), α = .84 for external self-empowerment index (ESEI), α = .88 for total self-empowerment index

Validity: Correlation between ISEI and ESEI was r=.64, indicating that the two components, to some degree, were measuring the same construct (self-empowerment).

Setting:

  • Faculty meetings
  • Educational

Stakeholder(s):

  • Educational institutions
  • Students

Type of measurement: Questionnaire

Possible uses: Educational instructor growth

Ease of implementation: 

Moderate. Participants are allotted 5 points on a 1-5 point Likert scale for each item. Each item contains 2 statements, so participants must divide these 5 points between the two, using only whole numbers (ex. 2 and 3, 4 and 1).  

25 items (with 2 statements each), est. 25 min.

Advantages: It is uncommon to find questionnaires that measure the autonomy of teachers, so this may provide useful information.

Drawbacks: 

  • Self-report
  • Distributing 5 points between two statements on one item may be time-consuming.

Studies this has been used in:

 

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