The development of a learner empowerment measure

The concept of empowerment has been used extensively in business, politics, and education in myriad ways and with multiple meanings. In this study, empowerment is conceptualized as a form of motivation (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990) which can exist as either a state or a trait. We believe that communication has a major influence on students' empowerment just as communication frequently impacts such conditions as state motivation (Frymier, 1994). The long range goal for which this research is a first step, is to understand the role of communication in the process of empowerment. The immediate goals of this research are to provide a more specific conceptualization of empowerment as applied to the classroom and to develop an instrument to measure learner empowerment. Drawing heavily on the work of Thomas and Velthouse (1990), two studies were conducted to develop and refine the learner empowerment measure and to establish the construct validity of the instrument.