Psychometric Evaluation of the Culture around Systemic Change Survey: A tool for Assessing Departmental Culture in Physics

TL;DR

This paper introduces and evaluates the psychometric properties of the Culture around Systemic Change Survey (CSCS), a tool designed to assess departmental culture in physics related to systemic change and equity.

Contribution

The study presents the development and initial psychometric evaluation of the CSCS, identifying a five-factor structure to measure perceptions of departmental culture.

Findings

Supported a five-factor structure including Open-Mindedness and Student Involvement

Validated the survey's psychometric properties with 111 participants across 33 departments

Lays groundwork for future studies on departmental culture and systemic change in physics

Abstract

Physics programs are continually evolving to better support student learning and meet the diverse needs of their populations. Achieving many of these goals requires not only structural adjustments but also fundamental shifts in departmental culture. Recognizing this, disciplinary organizations in physics have placed systemic change and equity at the center of reform efforts, identifying them as essential pillars of meaningful and sustainable change. Yet tools for assessing departmental culture around educational change remain limited. In this study, we introduce the Culture around Systemic Change Survey (CSCS), a new instrument designed to measure faculty and staff perceptions of their department's "current" and "ideal" states. Using responses from the "current" scale only (N=111 participants across 33 departments), we conducted a psychometric evaluation of the CSCS. Exploratory factor analysis supported a five-factor structure, including Open-Mindedness (OM), Student Involvement (SI), Collective Interpretation of Evidence (CE), Sustainability (S), and Disruption of Systemic Injustices (DI). As survey development is an iterative process, future work will focus on refinement and confirmatory analysis. This work sets the foundation for conducting population studies that assess the state of progress of the physics community along an equitable and systemic culture to pursuing educational change.