The Active-Empathic Listening Scale (AELS): Conceptualization and Evidence of Validity Within the Interpersonal Domain

Active Empathic Listening Scale (AELS): Reliability and Validity in a Nationwide Sample of Greek Educators

“…The AELS (Bodie 2011b) is a self-report measure which includes 11 items that are scored on a seven-point Likert scale, with response alternatives being 1 = Never or almost never true, 2 = Usually not true, 3 = Sometimes but infrequently true, 4 = Occasionally true, 5 = Often true, 6 = Usually true, and 7 = Always or almost always true. The AELS (Bodie 2011b) produces three subscales: (a) Sensing (four items) which refers to a listener receiving both the expressed and the tacit information sent out by the other person (e.g., "I am aware of what others imply but do not say"); (b) Processing (three items) which refers to synthesizing and recalling the given information (e.g., "I keep track of points others make"); and (c) Responding (four items) which refers to the use of verbal and nonverbal means to clarify and indicate attention (e.g., "I ask questions that show my understanding of others' positions").…”

“…The AELS (Bodie 2011b) was translated into the Greek language, following established translation protocols (Solano-Flores et al 2009;Van de Vijver and Hambleton 1996). Two professional translators who were fluent in the English language (i.e., source) and were also native speakers of the Greek language (i.e., target) proceeded with independent forward translations into the target language.…”

“…Drollinger and colleagues (Drollinger et al 2006) described active empathetic listening as a procedure that includes three stages: (a) sensing, which refers to a listener attending to all of the explicit and implicit information expressed by the other person; (b) processing, which consists of synthesizing and remembering information in order to enable the construction of a narrative whole; and (c) responding, which involves clarification and use of verbal and nonverbal means to indicate attention. Active empathetic listening was first researched with the Active Empathetic Listening measure (AEL), which was created for use in the sales area by Drollinger and colleagues (Drollinger et al 2006) and was later adapted by Bodie for use in more general conversational settings and named Active Empathic Listening Scale (AELS) (Bodie 2011b). Both Drollinger et al (2006) and Bodie (2011b;Bodie et al 2013) presented findings that detailed a consistent and coherent factor structure for the AEL and AELS measures respectively, and provided initial evidence of convergent validity for the aforementioned scales by demonstrating that active empathic listening is related to general levels of conversational activity and self-report empathy.…”

“…Active empathetic listening was first researched with the Active Empathetic Listening measure (AEL), which was created for use in the sales area by Drollinger and colleagues (Drollinger et al 2006) and was later adapted by Bodie for use in more general conversational settings and named Active Empathic Listening Scale (AELS) (Bodie 2011b). Both Drollinger et al (2006) and Bodie (2011b;Bodie et al 2013) presented findings that detailed a consistent and coherent factor structure for the AEL and AELS measures respectively, and provided initial evidence of convergent validity for the aforementioned scales by demonstrating that active empathic listening is related to general levels of conversational activity and self-report empathy. Self-report AELS has been shown to be invariant across time (Bodie et al 2013) and associated with social skills important to the decoding of relational information (Gearhart and Bodie 2011).…”

“…However, besides sex, personality, and emotional intelligence, the impact of other factors such as age, job administrative position and training differences in the ability to actively empathically listen has not been researched. The presented study aims to translate AELS (Bodie 2011b) and investigate its reliability and validity in Greek educators providing further evidence for this scale as an active empathic listening self-report measure, since no relevant research has been conducted in the specific population to date. More specifically, the aim of the presented study is to examine internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Greek translation of AELS.…”