Abstract
The Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS) is an instrument designed to assess college students’ leadership participation. The SRLS is a 103-item instrument that measures the values associated with leadership development as defined by the Social Change Model (SCM). There are seven categories of the SCM: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and citizenship, as well as an eighth area referred to as change.
Introduction
Assessing student involvement and leadership allows practitioners to gain an in-depth knowledge of student achievement in the area of leadership development. In addition, assessment provides a roadmap for program development and resource allocation that compliments students’ needs. The SRLS not only allows practitioners to accomplish both tasks, but also utilizes a leadership model that is grounded in the values associated with contemporary liberal arts higher education.
About the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS)
The SRLS is intended to be used with individuals, informal groups, and formal organizations in both research and practice. To date, this instrument has been utilized predominately for research purposes. This straightforward, easy to understand instrument takes approximately 15 minutes to administer and, in its current form, is scored by hand. The SRLS is authored and owned by Dr. Tracy Tyree, currently the dean of students at Susquehanna University. The instrument was developed as her dissertation work in 1998 and, although it is used in a number of programs, it has had relatively little written about it since that time.
The SRLS was designed as a tool for measuring the values associated with the Social Change Model for leadership development and for assessing college students’ participation in a process of socially responsible leadership. This 103-item instrument measures the seven constructs (the seven "C’s") of the Social Change Model of leadership development: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and citizenship, as well as an eighth construct referred to as change. The SRLS clusters the items (statements) associated with each construct to yield scores that indicate either an individual’s or an entire group’s progress in the SCM leadership C’s.
Who is this instrument for?
The SRLS was specifically developed for use in assessing college student leadership. Unlike other leadership measurement instruments developed in business and industry settings, the SRLS was created and tested using undergraduate college student groups. This makes it a particularly valuable tool for higher education practitioners and researchers. Because the instrument can be used to assess either individual or group progress, it may be especially useful for student affairs professionals working with student organizations, leadership teams, or student staff.
Constructs and Definitions
The SRLS measures eight areas identified in the SCM for leadership development. The eight constructs and their definitions are as follows: [14, p. 176]
Consciousness of Self:
Being aware of the beliefs, values, attitudes, and emotions that motivate a person to take action.
Congruence:
Thinking, feeling, and behaving with consistency, genuineness, authenticity, and honesty towards others.
Commitment:
Having the energy that motivates an individual to serve and that drives the collective effort.
Collaboration:
Working with others in a common effort.
Common Purpose:
Having shared goals and values when working with others.
Controversy with Civility:
Believing in two fundamental realities of any creative effort—(1) that differences in viewpoint are inevitable, and (2) that such differences must be aired openly but with civility.
Citizenship:
Believing in a process whereby an individual and/or group becomes responsibly connected to the community and to society through some activity.
Change:
Believing in the importance of making a better world and a better society for oneself and others.
Faculty and staff working at a college or university that values one or more of the leadership constructs may find the SRLS helpful in assessing student growth in these areas.
Examples
Below are examples of SRLS questions relating to the each specific "C." Respondents rate each statement from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).
Consciousness of Self:
Congruence:
Commitment:
Collaboration:
Common Purpose:
Controversy with Civility:
Citizenship:
Change:
The instrument can be used as a stand-alone tool to gauge the leadership abilities of individual students and student groups. Additionally, researchers can administer the SRLS alongside other instruments looking at student demographics or characteristics, like the NSSE. In this way, researchers can look for relationships between student leadership skills and characteristics (involvement in extracurricular activities, for example). Finally, the SRLS can be administered before and after a particular educational activity, such as a service learning project, in order to look for growth and development in leadership skills.
Obtaining the instrument
At this time, individuals interested in using the SRLS can obtain a copy and other related documents by contacting the National Clearinghouse on Leadership Programs at the University of Maryland.
Strengths and Weaknesses
While the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale is an empirically sound measure, few published works exist that report on use of the instrument. Tyree indicated that, in addition to the strong psychometric properties reported initially in her dissertation study, the SRLS instrument has held up equally well in separate unpublished research-related studies by Faris and Rubin. Perhaps the greatest strength of the SRLS is the fact that it was developed specifically for use with college students. [15] The ability to score the instrument for individual or group results is an additional bonus for college and university administrators, staff, and faculty.
Liberal Arts Education and Leadership
Institutions might view a liberal arts education as one which, among other qualities, prepares students to take responsibility for active engagement and effective participation in society by leading lives of leadership and service. Marcy argues that if we accept an understanding of leadership viewed by definition as a collective or group process, then "the tenets of liberal education are the basis for [that] educated citizenry . . . . This is true not because through liberal education we offer answers, but because we are so good at asking questions, holding competing ideas, and wrestling complex conditions." [10, p. 7]
For institutions aiming to develop and assess students’ leadership skills, abilities to understand leadership concepts, and awareness of their roles in serving the college or university community, family, workplace, and society with ethical action, the SCM offers a leadership model with similar values. The SRLS is a valuable tool in measuring this concept.
Furthermore, because the SRLS is grounded in a model incorporating citizenship, consciousness of self, controversy with civility, and the other "C’s," many other qualities often associated with liberal arts education might indirectly be measured by this instrument. For example, well-being and effective reasoning and problem solving are liberal arts outcomes that might well involve consciousness of self and controversy with civility. In this way, the SRLS is a valuable tool for looking directly at leadership, and possibly indirectly at a number of other liberal arts outcomes.
Concluding Remarks
As increasing pressure for accountability is brought to bear on colleges and universities, scholars and practitioners seek to better understand the factors that influence positive student learning outcomes. This is particularly true for outcomes associated with student engagement, growth, and development. Kuh et al. suggested that "higher education is supposed to effect desirable changes in students’ values, intellectual capacities, and esthetic sensibilities. The impact of the college experience on students increases when they are more actively engaged in various aspects of college." [9]
Understanding student involvement via leadership assessment tools can yield a greater in-depth knowledge of student achievement in the area of leadership development. Assessment of student involvement and leadership provides a roadmap for program development and resource allocation that compliments students’ needs. The SRLS not only allows practitioners to accomplish both tasks, but also utilizes a leadership model grounded in the values associated with contemporary liberal arts higher education.
Addendums
Social Change Model for Leadership Development
In considering whether to use the SRLS, it is important to understand the model that it measures and upon which it was built. Social Change Model (SCM) for Leadership Development was born from the desire to create a "college-based [leadership] program . . . that could instill in young persons a strong sense of civic responsibility and a desire for social change." [5]
SCM Leadership is described as a process in which "collaborative relationships . . . lead to collective action grounded in the shared values of people who work together to effect positive change." [3, p. 17] The SCM emphasizes values clarification, self-awareness, trust, service, collaboration, and change toward the common good. Several basic assumptions underlie the model: leadership is a process not a position, all students are potential leaders, service is a valuable tool for developing leaders, and leadership ought to bring about a desirable social change. [3]
This understanding of leadership integrates seven "core values, which fall into three groupings: personal or individual values (consciousness of self, congruence, commitment), group values (collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility), and a societal and community value (citizenship)." [5, p. 5] These seven values are referred to as the "Seven C’s." Change, an eighth "C," is often included as the "hub which gives meaning and purpose to the 7 C’s" and is a significant goal in this type of leadership process. [3, p. 21]
More recently, the term "non-hierarchical leadership" has been utilized to label this type of leadership. [11] Non-hierarchical leadership models such as the SCM eliminate the necessity to draw distinctions between followership and leadership. As new understandings of leadership have emerged, consideration of the follower has been re-conceptualized to accommodate the nature of relationships in groups. Komives, Lucas, and McMahon note, "It seems woefully inadequate to call group members followers, implying they are following someone or something, unable to think for themselves . . . when actually they are creating and shaping context themselves." [7, p. 12]
To learn more about the SCM, refer to A social change model of leadership development: Guidebook (Version III), available through the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs at the University of Maryland or the National Society for Experiential Education.
Leadership and Student Involvement as a Student Learning Outcome
A substantial amount of literature exists on how students develop during their college years and a growing body of research considers which collegiate experiences most strongly influence those changes. The work of Astin suggests that student involvement has a positive impact on growth and change in college. [1, 2] Three major areas are often studied and reported in the literature: student involvement in co-curricular activities, faculty-student contact, and volunteerism. Leadership is a key component to consider when assessing student engagement or involvement. Studies demonstrate that, among traditional-aged college students, involvement in co-curricular activities corresponds to more positive educational and social experiences overall, increased intellectual and leadership development, and higher persistence to graduation. [2, 8] Similar results are reported for students who spend time with faculty outside the classroom. [1, 2] While the extent to which students actively participate in volunteer service varies from study to study, most findings suggest that participation in volunteer activities is positively associated with a number of cognitive and social outcomes during the undergraduate years. [4]
Pascarella and Terenzini considered student development in a variety of related areas: intellectual, interpersonal, moral, and cognitive. [12] They reported that, while the outcomes vary, some evidence supports the effect of involvement. In further clarification, Pascarella, Terenzini, and Blimling suggested that students develop "holistically (i.e., change in one area of a student’s growth is accompanied by changes in other aspects of that student’s being)." [13, p. 149] They also note that out-of-classroom experiences appear to be "far more influential in students’ academic and intellectual development than faculty members and academic and student affairs administrators think." [13, p. 157]
Cooper, Healy, and Simpson examined college student development to determine relationships between students involved in clubs and organizations and those who were not involved. [6] They found evidence to support the concept that involvement is related to growth and change in college. Specifically, first-year students involved in student organizations scored higher in two developmental areas than non-members. By their junior year, the discrepancies were even more significant with involved students scoring higher in seven areas.
Information about Designing the Instrument
The SRLS was developed during three separate phases. The first, a rater exercise, utilized a group of experts and students to sort 291 items into each of the eight constructs they believed it measured. This step produced 202 items with a high level of agreement. The second phase involved test piloting the 202-item instrument with undergraduate students by administering it multiple times to the same students over a period of time. From that phase, a 104-item instrument evolved. In the third step, this instrument was tested on more than 300 undergraduate students.
Psychometric Properties
Evidence of reliability and validity emerged during the development phase, pilot study, and final study. "Of the eight constructs, two of the eight had respectable alphas (.70 or greater), while five others were very good (greater than .80). Controversy with civility had a minimally acceptable alpha at .6866." [14, p. 127] Factor analysis was conducted to explore construct validity for the instrument and the results indicated that "each construct produced between two and four significant factors with at least 30% of the variance explained by the first factor for every construct except controversy with civility." [14, p. 128] The aforementioned are based on a study utilizing a sample of 675 undergraduate students. Tyree reports that the instrument has held up equally well in subsequent uses. [15]
References
Additional Resource
Astin, A.W. & Astin, H.S. (2000). Leadership reconsidered: Engaging higher education in social change. Battle Creek, MI: W. Kellogg Foundation.