Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Experiences of Social Inclusion Scale

In recent years, a growing body of literature on social inclusion on an individual level has emerged. Yet, there is no common understanding of the concept itself and how to measure it. The objective of this study was to document the development of the Experiences of Social Inclusion Scale (ESIS), including the theoretical framework used for this purpose, which draws strongly on the capability approach. The ESIS is a brief closed survey instrument to assess self-reported experiences of social inclusion, and the aim was to evaluate its psychometric properties. The sample used for this consisted of 847 adults aged 18-87 years from all over Finland, most of them affected by or at immediate risk of social exclusion. The results indicated good internal reliability and consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.89). Furthermore, factor analyses suggested a one-dimensional factor structure for the ten items of the ESIS. The mean score on the ESIS was not statistically significantly different between male and female respondents, whereas a weak positive association with age and statistically significant differences for experiences of poverty were found. Analyses for convergent validity showed that the ESIS was statistically significantly associated with instruments measuring related concepts. All correlations were in the expected direction and rather substantial in magnitude but did not indicate that the same construct was being measured (r = .409 to r = .678). These promising results indicate a broad applicability of the ESIS in self-administered questionnaires, and its use in future research is encouraged.