Brenda McGowan

Predicting Turnover: Validating the Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale.

A number of proxies have been used in child welfare workforce research to represent actual turnover; however, there have been no psychometric studies to validate a scale specifically designed for this purpose. The Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale is a proxy for actual turnover that measures workers’ intention to leave. This scale was validated in the current study by a CFA. The resulting factors were compared to actual turnover. Nearly two in three workers who indicated that they had considered looking for a job in the past year actually left their agencies (60.0%). A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine the validity of the Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale. The best fitting model consisted of three factors with acceptable fit statistics (X 2 = 28.6, p = 0.04; RMSEA = 0.05, 90% RMSEA CI = 0.01-0.08; CFI = 0.99; TLI = 0.98). Identified latent factors included “thinking,” which included observed variables related to workers thinking about leaving their current jobs; “looking,” which included observed variables related to workers searching for a new job; and “acting,” which included observed variables related to workers actually taking physical steps to seek a new job. Once a good fitting model was identified, binary logistic regression was conducted to determine odds ratios to predict who actually left their agencies. Each of the identified latent factors was significantly predictive of actual leaving (thinking: OR = 1.24, p = 0.00; looking: OR = 1.25, p = 0.00; acting: OR = 1.28, p = 0.01).

Societal Factors Impacting Child Welfare Validating the Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale

Objective: This research examines the psychometric properties of the Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale (PCWS). This instrument is designed to assess child welfare workers’ understanding of how society views their role and their work. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to analyze data on 538 child welfare workers. Results: The final model consisted of three latent variables with 14 indicators related to stigma, value, and respect (χ2 = 362.33, p = .00; root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = .09; 90% confidence interval [CI]: [.08, .09]; comparative fit index [CFI] = .96; Tucker–Lewis Index [TLI] = .95). Discussion: The way in which workers believe others view their work suggests an increasingly complex prototype for understanding workforce issues. Those wishing to examine societal factors related to child welfare workforce issues could use this validated instrument.