Constructing the Norm-critical awareness scale: A scale for use in educational contexts promoting awareness of prejudice, discrimination, and marginalisation

PurposeHealthcare professionals’ conscious or unconscious norms, values and attitudes have been identified as partial explanations of healthcare inequity. Norm criticism is an approach that questions what is generally accepted as “normal” in society, and it enables professionals to identify norms that might cause prejudice, discrimination and marginalisation. In order to assess norm-critical awareness, a measurement scale is needed. The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale for measuring norm-critical awareness.Design/methodology/approachThe scale-development process comprised a qualitative item-generating phase and a statistical reduction phase. The item pool was generated from key literature on norm criticism and was revised according to an expert panel, pilot studies and one “think aloud” session. To investigate the dimensionality and to reduce the number of items of the scale, confirmatory factor analysis was performed.FindingsThe item-generation phase resulted in a 46-item scale comprising five theoretically derived dimensions revolving around function, consequences, identity, resistance and learning related to norms. The item-reduction phase resulted in an instrument consisting of five dimensions and 20 items. The analyses indicated that a summary score on the scale could be used to reflect the broad dimension of norm-critical awareness.Originality/valueThe Norm-critical awareness scale comprises five theoretically derived dimensions and can be used as a summary score to indicate the level of norm-critical awareness in educational contexts. This knowledge is valuable for identifying areas in greater need of attention.