University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, Educational, School, and Counseling and Counseling Psychology Psychology 2014 AWARENESS OF PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION SCALE-2: CONSTRUCTION AND INITIAL VALIDATION Michael J. McClellan University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation McClellan, Michael J., "AWARENESS OF PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION SCALE-2: CONSTRUCTION AND INITIAL VALIDATION" (2014). Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology. 22. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/edp_etds/22 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained needed written permission statement(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine) which will be submitted to UKnowledge as Additional File. I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I agree that the document mentioned above may be made available immediately for worldwide access unless an embargo applies. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of my work. 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Remer, Major Professor Dr. Kenneth Maurice Tyler, Director of Graduate Studies AWARENESS OF PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION SCALE-2: CONSTRUCTION AND INITIAL VALIDATION _______________________________ DISSERTATION _______________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky By Michael J. McClellan Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Pam Remer, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology Lexington, Kentucky 2014 Copyright © Michael J. McClellan 2014 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION AWARENESS OF PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION SCALE-2: CONSTRUCTION AND INITIAL VALIDATION The purpose of this study was to revise the Awareness of Privilege and Oppression Scale (Montross, 2003) and to improve upon the psychometric properties of the original instrument. The APOS-2 is a diversity training outcome measure that is designed to measure the social justice-related construct awareness of privilege and oppression. I retained 26 items from the original APOS (Montross, 2003) and utilized an expert focus group to generate new test items for the APOS-2. Feedback from an expert rater group was solicited and then incorporated into the APOS-2 to help reduce the number of items, improve item content, and evaluate content validity. The newly revised scale was then administered to a combined sample of 484 undergraduate students at a large public university through an internet-based survey. Item-analysis procedures and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with direct oblim oblique rotation were utilized to further reduce the number of items and then determine the psychometric properties of the final solution. The EFA of the APOS-2 data provided support for the theoretical four- factor solution. The observed Cronbach alpha reliability estimates for the final 40-item total score and subscale scores were as follows: Total score (.92), Awareness of Heterosexism (.84), Awareness of Sexism (.73), Awareness of Classism (.84), and Awareness of Racism (.86). The APOS-2 correlated low and positively (r = .29) with a measure of openness to diversity and negatively and close to zero (r = -.10) with a social desirability measure. These collective data suggest the APOS-2 may be a viable alternative to the original APOS with a stronger initial effort to link item content to the extant literature, improved subscale reliability estimates, continued support for the use of the theoretically derived subscales, and a predictable relationship with measures of convergent and discriminant validity. KEYWORDS: Privilege and Oppression, Social Justice, Diversity Training, Awareness, Effectiveness Michael J. McClellan Student May 2, 2014 Date AWARENESS OF PRIVILEGE AND OPPRESSION SCALE-2: CONSTRUCTION AND INITIAL VALIDATION By Michael J. McClellan Dr. Pamela L. Remer Director of Dissertation Dr. Kenneth Maurice Tyler Director of Graduate Studies May 2, 2014 Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A handful of pages in a dissertation is certainly not enough space to encapsulate the sacrifice, appreciation, commitment, and hard work that has occurred in order for me to actualize my goal of achieving a Ph.D. I came from very humble beginnings. I grew up poor and often relied on government assistance, charity, and the support of a few key relatives including my Aunt Linda, Uncle Daniel, and my wonderful quasi-adoptive grandparents, Doris and Buddy. These four individuals were monumental in making sure I had clothing, food, love, and often shelter over my head. There is no way I will ever be able to thank these four individuals enough for keeping me from falling through the cracks and for instilling in me the value of hard work and perseverance. I was not always a successful student. I skipped kindergarten and then moved around a lot as a child. I struggled to learn to read by the end of first grade and failed second grade on my first attempt. I sputtered along as a student until two wonderful and caring foster parents took me in and provided the stability and encouragement I needed at a key moment in my life. Al and Patty taught me that I could be a successful student if I only applied myself and they made me believe I could be anything in life if I set my mind to it. Thanks to Al, Patty, and all of the other foster parents out there who often engulf themselves in challenging and difficult situations for the benefit of others. The financial costs of college were overwhelming for me as a potential first- generation college student. My high school biology teacher and her husband (Cindy and Sherman) were very instrumental in helping me survive high school and believe that I could actually go to college. Cindy was an amazing cheerleader and mentor for me. She often believed in me even when I didn’t even believe in myself. She was someone I iii could talk to when I felt like no one else would listen and her encouragement and mentorship made me never give up on my dream of going to college. Cindy and Sherman introduced me to Berea College, my eventual alma mater, and took me to visit the campus. These two educators went above and beyond their everyday work as teachers and gave me the courage I needed to become a first-generation college student. Thank you to Cindy and Sherman and all of the teachers out there who push, prod, encourage, and go above and beyond what is expected of them in order to help people like me reach for their dreams. I fit in as a first generation college student at Berea College and it was a perfect fit for me. I, however, struggled to find my niche in academia and to find a major that suited me. College was hard and I wasn’t prepared in many ways for the intensity of college academic work. Dr. Bill Best, my college swim coach, took me under his wing just when I needed someone the most. I could only dog pedal when he allowed me to try out for the swim team. His patience and willingness to work with me led me from a group of swimmers who couldn’t swim well enough to make the traveling team all of the way to our national championships in a few short years. Bill and the swim team kept me involved and motivated me to stay in school. Without Bill’s patience and mentorship, I believe I would have thrown in the towel during the darkest moments in college when I struggled to find my way. I must also thank Dr. Pam Remer, my advisor and committee chair, for taking me on as a doctoral student. I entered the doctoral program with an unquenchable desire for social justice and Pam has allowed to grow and flourish as a student. She has been extremely patient with me through every step of the process and she has invested iv countless hours of her life in me as a student. Through Pam, I became involved in teaching diversity awareness groups and it was this work that was instrumental in helping me understand the need for instruments like the APOS-2. Pam’s work as dissertation chair of the original APOS construction project was also key in my decision to revise the APOS rather than starting a new instrument from scratch.