Assessment, Statistics, and Research

Following a painful experience like those reported by women in the “me too” movement, many may work to forgive their offender to free themselves from the ongoing internal struggle caused by rehearsing the event and nursing anger. Forgiveness, of course, should not be construed as excusing, pardoning, or tolerating abuse. Neither should survivors' forgiveness of their offenders reduce the responsibility of government and business leaders to act justly and provide safeguards against future offenses. When people begin to work on forgiveness toward offenders for particularly horrific offenses like rape and murder, they may find strong emotions like anger and the desire for revenge make it seem impossible to overcome. Ev Worthington (Virginia Commonwealth University) and his colleagues have published two measures of forgiveness that divide forgiveness into two parts: Emotional and Decisional. This makes sense to me as a clinician, a scientist, and a person who, like many,...

Educators, School Administrators, Mental Health workers, and parents ought to be aware of teacher stress because of the critical role teachers play all societies. High levels of stress may lead to burnout. There are several measures of teacher stress, which can help you assess and monitor stress levels. One popular measure is the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) revised by Schutz and Long in 1988 .  The scale uses a 5-point Likert-type scale to rate stressful situations in seven categories (an item example in parentheses): Role ambiguity (I am unclear on what the scope and responsibilities of my job are) Role stress (I find that I have extra work beyond what should be normally expected of me) Organizational management (My administrative head does not ask my opinion on decisions that directly affect me) Job satisfaction (All in all, I would say that am I am not satisfied with my job) Life satisfaction (My life is currently quite lonely) Task stress ...

News photo unrelated to people mentioned in the post Transformational leadership is a popular style of leadership with evidence that transformational leaders influence work teams. Transformational leaders have been identified as those with a charismatic personality who inspire others with a clear vision for the future. They communicate well and serve as role models as they inspire confidence and increase motivation. Here's a quote from Edwards et al., 2010 Burns (1978)[18] first conceptualized transformational leaders as those who mobilize their efforts to reform organizations, in part by raising followers’ consciousness beyond personal interests to be more in line with organizational goals and vision. Interactive and highly participatory encounters among all members of a team are key ingredients. Through these interactions, visions emerge, consensus is built, plans are discussed, and potential roadblocks are explored, increasing buy-in and accountability among team member...

Scale Name: Trait Forgiveness Scale (TFS) There are several questionnaires that can help individuals, clinicians, and researchers discover levels of forgiveness. As you might suspect, the different measures reflect different ideas about forgiveness. In this post I will look at trait forgiveness rather than state forgiveness. I am using trait in a psychological sense to mean a disposition or tendency—a behavior pattern that we might consider a part of someone’s personality. Psychological scientists sometimes refer to trait forgiveness as dispositional forgiveness or  forgivingness . Trait forgiveness stands in contrast to a particular state of forgiveness. For example, a person may think about a specific offender and a specific event and respond to questions on a “state” scale to indicate their current progress in forgiving the offender. We should also keep in mind that most older forgiveness scales focused on victims forgiving another person rather than forgi...

Recently, I read a Gallup survey reporting the views of Americans about ethics and honesty of people in various professions. In a sense, the findings indicate how much Americans trust the people in the professions. Nurses won the top spot at 84% "very high" ratings—they have been #1 for 15 years in a row. Clergy are in the middle at 44% and Members of Congress at the bottom of their list at 8%.   Read the survey for more details of this 2017 study. I was surprised by the clergy data. And found another survey, which produced similar results in the UK. The Ipsos MORI poll reported that school-age children highly trusted doctors to tell the truth (88%). But clergy came in at 46%, which is below Scientists at 53%. Levels of trust can vary. And trust can be defined in different ways. How do you measure trust? I found two short trust scales at the Fetzer organization, which are available in a pdf document (see below). You will find references to studies in a...

We can learn a lot about presenting survey results by looking at what experts do. The scientists at Pew Research presented findings from a Christmas in America survey . Take a look at their work. 1. Focus on highlights. For general audiences, select the most important facts. For example, it is no big news to say over 90% of Christian Americans celebrate Christmas. But to learn there’s a drop in celebrating Christmas as a religious rather than a cultural holiday is news (46% down from 51% in 2013). It’s also interesting to learn that younger persons are lower on the religious emphasis than are older adults. Of course, to focus on highlights, you have to create good survey questions in the first place. So, check out the items Pew reports to make their findings more meaningful (e.g., include age groups and religious affiliation in your survey). 2. Use percentages and graphics to depict trends. On fact 2, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” Pew shows a change ...