Preliminary Evidence of the Reliability and Validity of a Quantitative Measure of Self-Authorship

Abstract

This article presents preliminary evidence of the reliability and validity of a measure of self-authorship derived from 18 items in the Career Decision Making Survey. The research conceptualizes a quantitative measure of self-authorship as a three-part score that reflects level of agreement with statements at each of the first three phases of development toward self-authorship. The instrument could be used to assess the outcomes of initiatives designed to promote growth in the development of self-authorship.

Contents

“…Elizabeth Creamer and Anne Laughlin (2005) and Laughlin and Creamer (2007) found that their self-authorship questionnaire provided information about whom students consulted for career decisions rather than how they constructed their consultations, the latter information emerging in interviews. Aware of the assessment challenges recounted here and in the interest of providing a psychometrically sound measure for assessing educational practice to promote self-authorship, Creamer continued work on the Career Decision Making Survey, which includes Likert-type items keyed to External Formulas, Crossroads, and early Self-Authoring (Creamer, Baxter Magolda, and Yue, 2010). Using the survey with college juniors and seniors resulted in eighteen items that show promise for assessing the three developmental dimensions, the three early developmental phases, and a matrix summary that portrays a range of meaning making (Creamer, Baxter Magolda, and Yue, 2010).…”

“…Aware of the assessment challenges recounted here and in the interest of providing a psychometrically sound measure for assessing educational practice to promote self-authorship, Creamer continued work on the Career Decision Making Survey, which includes Likert-type items keyed to External Formulas, Crossroads, and early Self-Authoring (Creamer, Baxter Magolda, and Yue, 2010). Using the survey with college juniors and seniors resulted in eighteen items that show promise for assessing the three developmental dimensions, the three early developmental phases, and a matrix summary that portrays a range of meaning making (Creamer, Baxter Magolda, and Yue, 2010). Additional efforts to develop paper-and-pencil measures of self-authorship have been inconclusive to date (Goodman and Seifert, 2009;Pizzolato and Chaudhari, 2009).…”

Assessing Self-Authorship Among Athletic Training Students

“…In effort to explain this challenge, one must first understand the difference between the structure and content of a thought. The content of an individual's thought refers to what he or she thinks, while the structure refers to the reason or justification for thinking it (Creamer et al, 2010). For example, two individuals may share in their thought that marijuana should be legalized.…”

“…Researchers developed a new measure for self-authorship (Creamer et al, 2010) referred to as the Career Decision Making Survey-Self Authorship (CDMS-SA). The CDMS-SA will be explained and analyzed in detail throughout the following section, as it is the instrument employed in this study.…”

“…The CDMS-SA is composed of select items from the Career Decision Making Survey (CDMS), originally developed by researchers studying the process of high school and college students' discernment of careers in information technology (Creamer et al, 2010). The phases of the journey toward self-authorship include external formulas (Phase 1), crossroads (Phase 2), early self-authoring (Phase 3), and internal foundation (Phase 4).…”