Sociocultural Barriers to Empowerment of Female University Teachers: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

Abstract

The study aimed to build an indigenous scale for measuringsociocultural barriers impeding female academics' empowerment in publicuniversities in Punjab. For this objective, the researcher explored thesociocultural factors impacting female teachers' empowerment statuswhile focusing on the personal, family, workplace, and public domains. A5-point Likert scale questionnaire was prepared. After pretesting, 21 itemswere retained for conducting an Exploratory Factor Analysis. A samplewas selected through simple random sampling from public universities inPunjab, and data were collected from 224 female academics throughOnline Survey. Using SPSS (version 25), EFA grouped items into fourfactors: (a) workplace harassment, (b) coercion on personal decisions, (c)domestic violence, and (d) negative public attitude. The cumulative scoreson these four factors were added to the Sociocultural Barriers scale. Allfactors contributed to measuring the construct of sociocultural barriers asthere was a positive correlation between factors and total scale scores.However, a weaker inter-factorial correlation indicated the mutualindependence of each component. Scale reliability was α= 0.83, and therange of Alpha Coefficients for factors varied between 0.90-0.85.

Public Sexual Harassment in Public Transportation in Pampanga

“…Likert Scales were used to gauge experiences, awareness, and knowledge. Researchers employed them to understand the extent of sexual harassment, its underlying causes, and preventive methods [23].…”