Transformative Quality Scale

What it measures

This scale measures transformative quality in higher education institutions (HEIs), defined as the institution's ability to enhance students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes while empowering them toward reflective, independent thinking, from the perspective of front-line faculty rather than institutional management or students. It was developed specifically for access-providing, non-elite business schools in a developing-country context, where conventional rankings and quality measures tend to disadvantage inclusive institutions. It captures five dimensions: students' confidence in critically evaluating and improving their own work, their general self- and social awareness, their skill at approaching and solving novel problems, the extent to which the institution has helped them overcome social prejudices (age, appearance, gender-career associations), and their acquisition of job-relevant skills and knowledge.

Response format

5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree); rated by faculty about their students' transformation, not by students themselves

Scale items

Critical Confidence

• I am confident that my students will be able to produce coursework at the required standard.
• I am confident that my students will be able to pass assessments at the first step.
• I am confident that my students will be able to remain adequately motivated throughout.
• This course at the university (college) requires students to understand concepts taught by us (lecturers).
• My students sometimes question the way others do something and try to think of a better way.
• As a result of this course at the university (college), the students have changed the way they look at themselves.
• To pass this course at the university (college), the students need to understand the content.
• My students often reflect on their actions to see whether they could have improved on what they did.
• As a result of this course at this university (college), my students have changed their normal way of doing things.
• My students often re-appraise their experience so that they can learn from it and improve for their next performance.
• After my students have solved a problem, they analyse what went right or what went wrong.
• My students make decisions and are happy with them later.
• When my students make plans to solve a problem, they are almost certain that they can make them work.
• My students try to predict the overall result of carrying out a particular course of action.
• Given enough time and effort, my students believe that they can solve most problems that confront them.

Overall Awareness

• Presently, my students are self-conscious about what is going on around them.
• Presently, my students are reflective about their life.
• Presently, my students are concerned about what other people think of them.

Approach-Avoidance Problem-Solving Skills

• When a solution to a problem isn't unsuccessful, my students examine why it didn't work.
• When my students are confronted with a complex problem, they try to develop a strategy to collect information so that they can define exactly what the problem is.
• When faced with a novel situation, my students have confidence that they can handle problems that may arise.
• When the first efforts of my students fail, they don't become uneasy about their ability to handle the situation.

Overcoming Prejudices

• The university (college) has enabled my students to transcend their prejudices against age. (having preferences for young over old).
• The university (college) has enabled my students to transcend their prejudices against skin tone (having preferences for light skin over dark skin).
• The university (college) has enabled my students to transcend their prejudices against gender-career (linking family with females and career with males).

Skillfulness

• The university (college) has helped my students to acquire adequate knowledge and skills for future jobs.
• The university (college) has helped my students to increase their knowledge, skills and abilities.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Only composite reliability (CR) was reported by the authors; Cronbach's alpha was described qualitatively as 'sufficient' for all factors but no exact values were given. CR by dimension: Overcoming Prejudices=.81; Critical Confidence=.96; Overall Awareness=.76; Approach-Avoidance Problem-Solving Skills=.82; Skillfulness=.84. Overall Awareness is the weakest dimension (CR = .76, its only reported reliability metric), although its AVE (.51) still meets the .50 convergent validity guideline; the other four dimensions exceed .80. Critical Confidence's unusually high CR (.96) reflects its large 15-item pool. AVE ranged .51-.73 across all dimensions, all above the .50 threshold. Discriminant validity was confirmed via both Fornell-Larcker and HTMT criteria. An original sixth dimension, emotional stability, was dropped after EFA. Ratings are provided by front-line faculty about their students, not self-reported by students -- an unusual and deliberate design choice by the authors to capture an under-researched stakeholder perspective.

Citation

Gill, S.K., Dhir, A., Singh, G. and Vrontis, D. (2022). Transformative Quality in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): Conceptualisation, scale development and validation. Journal of Business Research, 138, 275-286.

Keywords

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