The reliability and validity of a multicultural assessment instrument developed for a graduate program in psychology.

Abstract

The Diversity Mission Evaluation Questionnaire (DMEQ) was developed to assess attitudes, beliefs, and experiences pertaining to multicultural matters at a graduate program in psychology. Using scores of 247 students, 57 faculty, and 19 staff, the authors revealed three latent traits through exploratory factor analysis: Overall Success, Open Discussion of Diversity Issues, and belief that multicultural activities were Freely Undertaken. The high internal consistency of all of these scales (as > .81), coupled with expected between-groups differences and significant correlations with experiences of prejudice, suggests that the instrument assessed diversity issues in a precise and valid manner. It was concluded that the DMEQ could be used by institutions desiring to assess their multicultural climates. Evaluative data from a graduate school that has adopted and implemented a diversity mission are presented, and issues related to multicultural change are discussed.The increased diversity of the U.S. population has been well documented, and the implications of these changing demographics for psychology have been widely discussed (Atkinson, Brown,

The Challenge of Assessing Character: Measuring APA Goal 3 Student Learning Outcomes

“…Embracing the role a psychology major can play in influencing character development is not only difficult but also controversial. Many of the principles of effective pedagogy set forth in Goal 3 of the Guidelines are sometimes perceived as reflecting progressive values; faculty enacting the Guidelines could be criticized for emphasizing or promoting politically correct behavior (Ducker & Tori, 2001). It is important to note, however, that many of the Goal 3 principles, including ethical behavior and volunteer service, are politically neutral.…”

Reimagining Counselor Education with Diversity as a Core Value

“…By 2004, we had made sufficient progress in our reimagining efforts to engage in a diversity environment assessment. Finding no single instrument that sufficiently met our needs, we modified items from the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (Sodowsky, Kuo-Jackson, Richardson, & Corey, 1998), the Diversity Competence Checklist (Ponterotto & Alexander, 1995), the Multicultural Assessment Instrument (Ducker & Tori, 2001), and the Multicultural Environmental Inventory (Pope-Davis, Liu, Nevitt, & Toporek, 2000) to examine faculty, peers, classes, and climate. Students in all departmental programs completed the inventory, with a 44% response rate.…”

Cultural Considerations for Professional Psychology Ethics: Te tirohanga ahurea hei whakatakato tika, whakapakari te aro ki te tangata: Te ahua ki Aotearoa

“…As a discipline that values empirical evidence-based practices and procedures, the incorporation of indigenous or non-Western cultural perspectives into the content, delivery and training of psychology can be problematic, particularly when such perspectives do not easily translate into replicable and verifiable epistemologies. This may account for why such content is lacking, or only beginning to be incorporated in psychology programmes around the globe (Ducker & Christopher 2001). While there have been efforts to incorporate Indigenous Australian perspectives in university curricula, there is limited evidence this has occurred in psychology (Ranzijn et al 2008).…”