IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/comdev/v53y2022i3p263-280.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceptions of personal agency within communities: Validation of a diagnostic instrument

Author

Listed:
  • Abigail Borron
  • Kevan W. Lamm
  • D. Keith Atkins

Abstract

The uniqueness of communities precludes a homogenous approach to program design, delivery, and evaluation. To account for such uniqueness, such approaches should necessitate that program managers have a thorough understanding of the targeted participants or consumers. This understanding can be achieved by determining residents’ perceived personal ability, or personal agency, to act and function within the community. This paper represents an effort to operationalize the various capitals that comprise the Community Capitals Framework, focusing on the analysis and validation of an empirical instrument designed to quantify and measure perceived personal agency. Specifically, the objectives of this study were to (1) establish the factor structure of an overall personal agency scale and its capital components, (2) determine if the proposed models adequately fit the collected data, and (3) validate the scales by analyzing internal structure and consistency. The findings indicate that this personal agency scale is a valid and reliable instrument for developing community profiles based on personal agency perceptions. In addition, to account for individuals’ personal agency offers a significant contribution to potentially evaluating the social impact of community development efforts longitudinally.

Suggested Citation

  • Abigail Borron & Kevan W. Lamm & D. Keith Atkins, 2022. "Perceptions of personal agency within communities: Validation of a diagnostic instrument," Community Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 263-280, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:comdev:v:53:y:2022:i:3:p:263-280
    DOI: 10.1080/15575330.2021.1946577
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15575330.2021.1946577
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/15575330.2021.1946577?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:comdev:v:53:y:2022:i:3:p:263-280. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RCOD20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.