The development of a feminist family therapy scale
Abstract
This project involved the development and evaluation of the psychometric properties of an instrument that measures the degree to which family therapists conceptualize the process of therapy from a feminist-informed perspective as opposed to a more traditional conceptualization. The primary source of the items for the Feminist Family Therapy Scale (FFTS) are adapted from items generated by 37 nationally known feminist-informed family therapists who participated in Wheeler's (1985) Delphi Study. A panel of four judges reviewed the items and a pilot study was conducted, prior to the national mail survey of a random sample of 700 clinical members of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. The response rate was 57% (n = 401). The validity of the instrument was assessed by procedures of content validity, construct validity, hypothesis testing, and criterion-related validity. The reliability of the instrument was determined by examining the factor structure, estimating the internal consistency of the items, and test-retest procedures. The results of these procedures indicate that the FFTS is appropriate for use by clinicians who want to integrate feminist-informed theory into their practice, by academicians who want to teach feminist constructs in their classrooms, by supervisors who want to train their students to think from a feminist-informed perspective, and by researchers who want to measure the degree of feminist-informed thinking.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Piercy, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology
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