The justification for power-sharing with students typically covers two broad areas: (1) eliciting student ownership for learning and thus motivation and (2) creating socially just classrooms where students are welcome and respected. Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a psychological theory that explains motivation, can be used to contextualize our emphasis on student choice. SDT importantly separates extrinsic motivation, which comes from outside sources, like grades and the threat of failure, and intrinsic motivation, which is driven by the individual’s desire and requires three key variables: autonomy, connectedness, and competence (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The central tenet of SDT is that humans are motivated to grow, which causes them to search for challenges (Ryan & Deci, 2009). SDT has been applied to higher education in theory and practice, as high-quality education experiences can be driven by intrinsic motivation when students connect with one another, have opportunities to (im)prove competence, and are given autonomy to direct their studies (Ryan & Deci, 2009). Higher education students are voluntarily in the class, suggesting they made the choice for further education and thus are capable of making additional choices within the classroom (Alsobaie, 2015). Adults in the college classroom are already increasingly autonomous in their lives, and their social-emotional development is targeted towards independence at this stage (Erikson, 1994); therefore, pedagogical approaches that respect their autonomy and competence are well-matched to their development (Alsobaie, 2015). Additionally, as students progress in their college career and reach upper-level classes, autonomy-supportive course structures may better prepare them to graduate, make significant life choices, and enter the workforce.

Previous research demonstrates a link between intrinsic motivation to learn and time spent studying, academic performance, persistence, deep processing, and lower burnout (Kusurkar et al., 2013; Vansteenkiste et al., 2004). In an environment like a college campus, rich with educational opportunities, once motivation is lit, learning is sure to follow. While intrinsic motivation in students has been well studied, the instructional practices that contribute to students’ motivation have received less attention (Goldman et al., 2017; Stenalt & Lassesen, 2022). As autonomy is a particularly important component of intrinsic motivation in the classroom, utility-value interventions in which students write about the personal relevance of course material show promise in improving motivation, grades, and belonging in the classroom (Canning & Harackiewicz, 2015; Harackiewicz et al., 2016). While utility-value interventions present one avenue of increasing intrinsic motivation, previous SDT research highlights the need for future research to identify more specific teaching practices instructors might use to promote self-determined behavior in their students (Goldman et al., 2017; Stenalt & Lassesen, 2022). The umbrella of inclusive teaching translates theory to practice by outlining classroom attitudes, practices, and policies that aim to establish socially just classrooms and increase student ownership of learning.

The groundwork for power-sharing in the classroom was laid in seminal writings on democratic education and critical pedagogy (hooks, 1994; Dewey, 1916; Freire, 2000), which apply the principles of social justice to the relationship between students and instructors. As an ideal, power-sharing is a process “where students and instructors decide together what is most important and how to learn it most effectively” and is, therefore, by nature, “dynamic, participatory, and respectful” (Tolman & Lee, 2013, p. 3). There are several pedagogical practices that fall under inclusive teaching and involve sharing power in various degrees with students, including Students-As-Partners (SAP), collaborative learning, learner-centered teaching, trauma-inclusive pedagogy, democratic education, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). All these theories involve shifting more choice, autonomy, and power to the students (Meinking & Hall, 2020). Power-sharing as a classroom practice to increase inclusivity has been written about in various disciplines and is associated with improved motivation, confidence, and engagement (Bergmark & Westman, 2016); increased autonomy, self-regulation, and responsibility (Deeley & Bovill, 2017); and satisfaction and performance (Rideout, 2018). While less frequently discussed, high-quality inclusive teaching, which is a significant portion of faculty members’ time, can also improve their quality of life (Mahavongtrakul et al., 2021). This is not surprising since quality educational development can solve problems (i.e., grading issues) and give faculty tools to improve their relationships with students. For example, faculty in our focus groups reported that providing choice to students (i.e., around deadlines) provided them with several benefits, including less back-and-forth with students around extensions and late papers and better rapport with their students (Author & Author, in preparation). Additionally, identifying with inclusive teaching can link purpose and meaning to faculty members’ key responsibilities, offering opportunities for autonomy in course design, competence in teaching, and connectedness with students in the classroom (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

A recent review of inclusive teaching in the United States was done by Addy et al. (2021) and found that while knowledge of inclusive teaching was high among the sample, barriers including lack of departmental and institutional support influenced its implementation. Power-sharing in the classroom is certainly affected by the instructional and institutional context, and the instructor’s identity may impact their ability to power-share and how it is perceived. For example, in our focus group study, several instructors reported that a facilitator of power-sharing for them was job security, often in the form of tenure, that permitted them to engage in such activities with lessened fear of how it would be perceived by peers (Author & Author, in preparation). However, many of the inclusive teaching strategies measured in previous research are vague and ineffective, such as “implement instructional practices that promote equitable experiences” and “create learning environments that encourage equitable interactions between diverse students” (Addy et al., 2021). While scholars have been concerned with inclusive teaching, “as a broad approach that emphasizes equity,” educational developers have been more focused on specific teaching strategies and behaviors, as these can be taught and measured (Mirakhur et al., 2022, p. 5). Participants in a previous study suggested that educational development on inclusive teaching “should include tangible practices that were clear, practical, and easy to implement” (Bifulco & Drue, 2023, p. 145). Like the evolution in trauma-inclusive pedagogy from mere awareness of trauma impacts to a “concrete set of strategies” (Lynch & Wojdak, 2023, p. 156), we recognize that the dissemination and adoption of inclusive teaching practices may benefit from a set of concrete, measurable instructor behaviors.

Sharing power is one of the most effective tools to support the ethos of inclusive teaching by clearly signaling respect for student autonomy and competence and building connections between an instructor and students through this respect. A piece of the hidden curriculum that students are absorbing from faculty is how to treat others when one is in a position of power; therefore, part of a faculty member’s work, if truly concerned with using teaching to “create a more just society,” is to model how to give up power for equity, improved relationships, and a superior educational experience for all (Erby et al., 2021; Owenz, 2023). A faculty member in a previous educational development study reflected that inclusive pedagogy requires one to “forfeit some of the power and prestige” of a faculty member (Erby et al., 2021, p. 284). Much of the research on power-sharing with students includes individual classroom studies (Danley & Williams, 2020), an emphasis on professor over student perspectives (Addy et al., 2021), or is theoretical in nature (Alsobaie, 2015; see Addy et al., 2024 for an exception). Faculty perspectives of power-sharing (Addy et al., 2021; Bifulco & Drue, 2023) may or may not be experienced as true power-sharing by students.

There are several well-developed scales that measure student motivation and feelings, including belonging and positive feelings towards professors (Goldman et al., 2017; Slaten et al., 2018; Vallerand et al., 1992; Wilson et al., 2010). Additionally, there have also been some recent advancements in developing scales that measure higher education faculty attitudes towards inclusive teaching (Addy et al., 2021; Emmers et al., 2020; Lombardi & Murray, 2011; Lynch & Wojdak, 2023) as well as protocols for observing inclusive teaching practices (Addy et al., 2022). While there appear to be a variety of measures that are loosely related to power-sharing practices, the field of inclusive teaching has several major limitations. The first limitation is the vast number of terms and theories, which include power-sharing with students. Universal Design for Learning (Meyer et al., 2013), democratic classrooms (Stoddard, 2020), Trauma-Inclusive Pedagogy (Lynch & Wojdak, 2023), and Students-As-Partners (Cook-Sather et al., 2014) are just a few theories that share a key practice: providing students voice and choice in the classroom (Lawrie et al., 2017). The second major limitation is that the ability to systematically measure power-sharing practices has been limited, as there is no scale designed to do so. Instead, research has relied on qualitative accounts, observational protocols (Addy et al., 2022), or single-use surveys designed within the study (Bifulco & Drue, 2023; Danley & Williams, 2020; Lynch & Wojdak, 2023). The third limitation of the scholarship on power-sharing with students is an overemphasis on affective outcomes (i.e., “I feel included” or “I feel my voice matters;” Addy et al., 2021) and a lack of attention paid to behavioral components of power-sharing. The feeling of inclusion can exist without the practices due to identity factors (i.e., identity matching among students or between students and faculty members) (Addy et al., 2022). Finally, the fourth limitation of power-sharing research has been an over-reliance on faculty perspectives (Addy et al., 2021), although recent research has highlighted the importance of student voices (Addy et al., 2024). Researchers have written about and studied faculty attitudes towards inclusion (Addy et al., 2021), faculty syllabus language (Tolman & Lee, 2013), and faculty power-sharing and inclusive theories (Alsobaei, 2015). In fact, Cook-Sather et al. (2021, p. 105) recently wrote, “Most educational development does not draw directly on the experiences and perspectives of students.” Whether faculty attitudes and values translate to actual power-sharing practices that are recognized by students remains to be measured. As a good assessment is also intervention, a behavior-focused scale can assist educational developers by offering faculty examples of concrete behaviors to increase classroom inclusivity.

We sought to develop and test a measure of power-sharing practices by drawing on the knowledge from theory, previous work on inclusion and student autonomy, and the research team’s recent qualitative work. In order to “amplify student voices,” as recommended in educational development literature (Cook-Sather et al., 2021), our study intentionally included students throughout, both as participants and through the involvement of a student researcher, with the goal outcome being a measure developed by students for students. A large body of work on scale development emphasizes utilizing the knowledge of those with lived experience to operationalize the construct through interviews, panels, or focus groups (Mallinckrodt et al., 2016). Firstly, as a part of a study on inclusive teaching practices (Author & Author, in preparation), focus groups were conducted with a national sample of 30 faculty members. Among other questions, faculty were asked about if and how they shared power with students in the classroom. Specifically, in line with our definition of power-sharing, faculty were asked questions about how they give “voice” and “choice” to students within their classrooms. In parallel, in another study by this team, focus groups were conducted with a sample of 30 college students where they were asked a similar set of questions about if/how faculty members have power-shared with them by giving them voice and choice in the classroom (Author & Author, in preparation). Because a previous challenge to the field has been a lack of student perspectives on inclusive practices (see Cook-Sather et al., 2021 for a critique and exception), our work centered students in the interview process for the development of the items. A faculty member and student-researcher team used thematic analysis to code the data from these two studies (Terry et al., 2017). Items pertaining to power-sharing clustered around four sub-themes in both studies: activities, policies, assessments, and materials (Author and Author, in preparation; see Figure 1).

Students described these practices as critical to their sense of autonomy, belonging in the classroom, and competence (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2009). Faculty frequently described providing voice and choice to respect students’ autonomy and competence and as a method of promoting connection in the classroom (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2009).

Two researchers (a faculty member and a student researcher) worked independently, utilizing the content of these four subthemes to create a pool of 46 possible items describing power-sharing practices. The two researchers worked together to review the items. We refined the items by asking the following questions: (1) Could the item be written such that professors or students could respond to the questions? (2) Is the item written at a sixth-grade reading level? (3) Is the item representing a unique idea (not repetitive)? (4) Is the item directly reflecting an idea from the focus group participants? Original items were refined, reworded, and collapsed together based on these four questions. After culling and item review, we retained 31 items, which served as the Power-Sharing Practices Checklist for College Students in this present study.

The purpose of the study was to preliminarily evaluate the psychometric properties of the Power-Sharing Checklist for College Students. Firstly, we explored the checklist items using internal consistency measures and descriptive statistics. Secondly, we completed an exploratory factor analysis to understand the underlying structure of our checklist. Thirdly, we explored the relationship between the checklist and other variables related to college student flourishing to determine if it was conceptually related to the variables we expected. We expected it to be positively related to college persistence, university belonging, intrinsic academic motivation, and professor-student rapport. In contrast, we expected it to be negatively correlated with measures of student floundering, including feelings of burnout, extrinsic academic motivation, and amotivation. Fourthly, we examined whether college students and college faculty answer the checklist questions differently with inferential statistics.

The purpose of this study was to develop a measure of power-sharing instructional practices that emphasizes student perspectives of actual instructor behaviors and could be used across various theoretical approaches to inclusive teaching (i.e., Universal Design for Learning, Students-as-Partners, Learner-Centered Teaching, and Trauma-Inclusive Pedagogy). Results suggest the created Power-Sharing Practices Checklist (PSP) is an internally consistent and valid measure for assessing these instructional practices. The newly created measure was meaningfully related to other variables that are associated with college student success, including persistence, belonging, motivation, and professor-student rapport. The results are consistent with previous work, which suggests classroom practices that promote a sense of autonomy, competency, and connectedness (Ryan & Deci, 2009) are related to student success and motivation (Kusurkar et al., 2013; Rideout, 2018; Vansteenkiste et al., 2004). While power-sharing may be particularly important for certain groups of students (those who have experienced trauma, those who have a disability, or those whose identities have been traditionally marginalized in higher education), previous research on Universal Design for Learning and Trauma-Inclusive Pedagogy suggests voice and choice benefit all students (Lynch & Wojdak, 2023; Meyer et al., 2013).

There was no significant relationship between the scale and measures of student floundering, including extrinsic motivation and burnout. Additionally, we hypothesized the scale would be negatively correlated with amotivation, and instead, it was positively correlated. Regarding the two variables of student floundering, which the scale did not have a relationship with as predicted (extrinsic motivation and burnout), we interpret this null finding to mean that there may be many more factors than whether an instructor power-shares in the classroom that would come together to predict burnout and extrinsic academic motivation. Previous research highlights that more stable factors, like personality and cynicism, are strong predictors of burnout (Jacobs & Dodd, 2003; Wang et al., 2024). Similarly, academic motivation has been found to have several correlates, including teacher interactions, participation in extracurriculars, and identity factors, suggesting it is multidetermined (Trolian et al., 2023). It is perhaps not surprising that a positive classroom like power-sharing would be correlated with indicators of student flourishing (college persistence, belonging, intrinsic motivation, and professor-student rapport), but the absence of power-sharing is a common experience and therefore not sufficient to correlate with indicators of student floundering. While autonomy, connectedness, and competence in the classroom might be protective against burnout or exclusively extrinsic motivation, their absence does not appear sufficient to predict those multifaceted variables. Regarding amotivation, we do not have a theoretical or practical rationale for the significant finding. Prior to interpreting this unexpected finding, we would like to replicate it in another sample.

We used diverse focus groups of faculty and students, in addition to theory, to help us develop the checklist items. This step allowed us to be successful in our goal of creating a checklist that was grounded in and represents many forms of power-sharing that may be present in a classroom based on various pedagogical theories the instructors may subscribe to (i.e., Students-As-Partners, Universal Design for Learning). Students experience power-sharing, not particular instructor pedagogical theories. In addition to providing initial evidence of a reliable, valid checklist that is broadly applicable in inclusive higher education, the interpretation of our results supports two uses of the scale: (1) using the scale as a checklist, which accounts for class context and varied power-sharing goals, and (2) using the checklist within one class or program to check for alignment between faculty goals and perceptions of power-sharing practices and the student experience.

The initial development of the PSP checklist carries with it several implications for educational developers and faculty working to promote inclusive pedagogy. Firstly, good assessment is also an intervention (Bifulco & Drue, 2023). As such, the PSP checklist could be hosted by teaching centers for faculty to self-assess and identify areas for increased power-sharing in their classrooms. Secondly, the PSP checklist could be used by teaching and learning centers to identify “expert teachers” who could partner with centers to scale educational development (Bifulco & Drue, 2023). Thirdly, while there is a focus on training instructors in inclusive education, these programs rarely “have their outcomes assessed in a data-driven manner” (Mahavongtrakul et al., 2021, p. 1). Previous research suggests (Bifulco & Drue, 2023; Erby et al., 2021) inclusive teaching educational development works; however, to justify the importance and associated benefits of such educational development, we must be able to assess faculty practice prior to and after interventions. Finally, as noted in the discussion, because faculty can espouse inclusive pedagogy without accompanying classroom behaviors, the PSP checklist can be used by faculty and students within a class to help faculty assess whether their beliefs are translating to student perception of their practices, particularly at earlier points in the semester to avoid the trap of only seeking student feedback at the end of the term (Cook-Sather et al., 2021).

Results regarding the Power-Sharing Practices Checklist should be interpreted with an understanding of various limitations in its development. Sample size and skewness of the data were two factors that affected our factor analysis within this study. While we did not predict this result, in hindsight, we recognize that large variance in the PSP is expected, given it is context-specific and practices will vary widely. Another major limitation is the generalizability of our findings due to unique factors in our samples. Student data collection took place at institutions in Pennsylvania. The results may vary in a more geographically diverse sample. Additionally, both our student and faculty samples were over-representative of the natural and social sciences (81% of students were majoring in these fields, and 100% of faculty were teaching in these fields). Self-selection bias likely operated in the faculty who chose to participate in a study on power-sharing practices in the classroom (for example, these faculty may have believed in the importance of these practices). Additionally, while the items were the same, faculty stems began with “I…,” and student stems began with “My professor…,” and we do not know how respondents interpreted this (for example, were students thinking of a particular course or professor?). Finally, the student and faculty samples were not meaningfully related (i.e., in the same class or program); therefore, significant differences in perceptions could be due to context. Future research with a larger and more diverse sample may permit these analyses and further refine and validate the scale. Future research in which the checklist is administered to faculty and students within the same class, program, or college would further elucidate the relationship between faculty beliefs and the student experience of power-sharing.