Development and Validation of Perception of Wisdom Exploratory Rating Scale (POWER Scale): An Instrument to Examine Teachers' Perception of Wisdom

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With countless problems facing the world, there is an indispensable need for individuals who are able to persist and succeed in generating virtuous actions to meet unsettling eventualities. There have even been successful attempts to deploy specific wisdom-based curricula and then measure the results. Since the possibility for developing wisdom in the classroom exists, teachers’ perceptions of wisdom and the implicit beliefs that influence their ability to cultivate wisdom in their classroom become important to understand. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Perception of Wisdom Exploratory Rating (POWER) Scale based on the Polyhedron Model of Wisdom (PMW). According to PMW, components that characterize wisdom are knowledge; reflectivity and self-regulation; moral maturity; openness and tolerance; sound judgment; creativity; and dynamic balance and synthesis. A total number of 585 responses from in-service and preservice teachers with no missing data was collected. Inservice and preservice samples were randomly split into two halves for Exploratory Factor Analysis (n = 290) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n = 295). In the EFA, the items fit a seven-factor structure, producing the following subscales: knowledge management; self-regulation; altruism and moral maturity; openness; tolerance; sound judgment and decision making; creative thinking. CFA was performed to test the construct validity of the scale. The model did produce a good fit to the data (χ2/df= 1.67, CFI= .92, TLI= .91, RMSEA= .049, and SRMR= .06). With continued testing and revisions, this instrument could be useful for cross-cultural comparison of perceptions of wisdom and identification of barriers to promoting wisdom instruction. It also could be used to identify and compare, across different populations, educators’ perceptions of wisdom and measuring perceptional changes due to designed interventions.