A Scale for Measuring Social Worker Empowerment

Abstract

This article describes the development of a 34-item scale designed to measure social workers' perceptions of personal and professional power. Utilizing selected methods of both rational and empirical scale construction approaches, the measure is derived from theory and statistically validated. The approach used a three-phase normalization procedure that employed multiple methods to extract items and enhance validity and reliability. Correlational and factor analysis were the primary statistical methods used in the validation process. A panel of 24 workers, a pilot sample of 62 professionals and students, and a random sample of 520 social workers were the participating respondent groups in this study. The final shortened scale is a relatively sound measure for tapping the five dimensions of empowerment.

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