Development and Validation of Scales to Measure Capacity Building, Economic Empowerment, and Barriers to Economic Empowerment

To measure capacity building, economic empowerment, and barriers to economic
empowerment among youths involved in vocational skills development some scales were
designed by the researcher while other scales were used either in their original or modified
versions. The paper presents the scales developed by the researcher to measure these
variables. Scales measuring the participants’ skills acquisition, economic empowerment, and
barriers to economic empowerment were designed by the researcher. Training satisfaction
scale was modified to measure the participants’ perception of training received. Self-esteem,
perceived control, and personal growth initiative scales were used in their original versions.
Using a factorial analysis, the cronbach’s alpha of the developed instruments achieved a
reliability level at or above .70. The developed scales have contributed to knowledge as they
can be used to measure future research questions. It is hoped that several research directions
could be pursued using the developed scales.