Shared Decision-Making Survey

Abstract

The Shared Decision-Making Survey (SDMS), developed by King and Meshanko (1992; building upon doctoral research by Marcoline, 1990, and Meshanko, 1990), is a 30-item psychometric instrument designed to evaluate organizational governance, professional autonomy, and participative decision-making dynamics within primary and secondary educational systems. Rooted in the paradigms of school-based management (SBM), decentralized governance, and organizational empowerment theory, the SDMS systematically evaluates ten core decision domains critical to institutional functioning across three structural dimensions: Actual Teacher Participation (Section I; Items 1–10), Desired Teacher Participation (Section II; Items 11–20), and the Formal Mechanism/Procedure Facilitating Involvement (Section III; Items 21–30). The ten operational decision situations span managerial, instructional, evaluative, and budgetary contexts: hiring faculty, textbook selection, goal revision, faculty assignments, evaluation procedures, discipline policies, scheduling, budget priorities, staff development, and grading systems. Sections I and II employ an identical five-point participation continuum ranging from 1 (Not participate) to 5 (Make the decision), enabling the calculation of decision-deprivation, decision-equilibrium, and decision-saturation discrepancies. Section III assesses institutional formalization on a five-point scale from 1 (No involvement) to 5 (Board policy for shared decision making). In initial field trials across a stratified random sample of school districts in Pennsylvania encompassing 1,935 educators, 77 building administrators, and 81 school board members, the instrument demonstrated an overall internal consistency reliability coefficient of α = .87. The SDMS serves as a robust diagnostic and evaluative tool for educational researchers, organizational psychologists, and district administrators seeking to assess professional efficacy, mitigate role ambiguity, and align governance practices with decentralized decision-making mandates.

Keywords

Shared Decision-Making Survey, School-Based Management, Decentralized Governance, Teacher Participation, Decision Deprivation, Participative Management, Educational Administration, Organizational Climate, Teacher Autonomy, Educational Psychometrics

Authors

The Shared Decision-Making Survey was developed by Dr. R. L. King and Dr. Edward J. Meshanko in 1992. The empirical architecture and psychometric formulation of the instrument originated in foundational doctoral dissertations conducted at Indiana University of Pennsylvania:

• Dr. Edward J. Meshanko: Department of Educational Leadership and Administration, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Meshanko’s research focused on comparative analyses of decision-making authority among instructional staff, building-level principals, and school board directors (Meshanko, 1990).
• Dr. R. L. King: Department of Educational Administration, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. King collaborated on formalizing the survey for presentation at the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) to evaluate structural and psychological locus of control within decentralized educational environments (King & Meshanko, 1992).
• Dr. Joseph F. Marcoline (Contributing Researcher): Department of Educational Leadership, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Marcoline contributed significantly to the pilot validation and baseline structural analysis comparing administrative perceptions to front-line teaching staff perceptions regarding participatory policy structures (Marcoline, 1990).

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Shared Decision-Making Survey (SDMS) is to quantify the multidimensional landscape of decision-making involvement within educational organizations. Developed during an era characterized by nationwide institutional reform and systemic restructuring—specifically the rise of school-site management and decentralized governance—the SDMS addresses critical empirical and diagnostic imperatives in organizational psychology and educational leadership.

Historically, educational systems functioned within rigid top-down, bureaucratic hierarchies where curriculum mandates, staffing configurations, and fiscal disbursements were formulated by centralized school boards and district superintendents. The theoretical rationale underpinning the SDMS posits that teachers possess a profound, direct “personal stake” in instructional, curricular, and operational decisions that influence the classroom milieu. When an individual has a high personal stake in an institutional outcome, their intrinsic interest in contributing to that decision increases substantially. Suppressing or formalizing barriers against that interest results in psychological alienation, reduced institutional commitment, occupational burnout, and decreased instructional efficacy. Conversely, facilitating meaningful participation enhances organizational citizenship behaviors, job satisfaction, and institutional resilience.

In research contexts, the SDMS serves as a diagnostic instrument to examine the alignment between actual participation patterns and aspirational professional desires. By employing parallel structures across actual participation (Section I) and desired participation (Section II), investigators can compute mathematical gap scores known as “decision condition indexes”:

• Decision Deprivation: Occurs when an educator’s desired level of participation significantly exceeds their actual level of involvement (Desired > Actual), yielding structural frustration, perceived marginalization, and organizational cynicism.
• Decision Equilibrium: Achieved when an educator’s actual participation matches their desired involvement level (Actual = Desired), fostering optimal professional satisfaction and high psychological ownership.
• Decision Saturation: Manifests when actual participation exceeds desired involvement (Actual > Desired), precipitating administrative fatigue, cognitive overload, and distraction from core instructional responsibilities.

From an applied and clinical perspective within educational consulting, the SDMS allows organizational diagnosticians to evaluate whether participation is codified into sustainable district culture via official policy or relegated to sporadic, ad-hoc, or informal consultations (evaluated via Section III). By examining the interplay across managerial (e.g., budgeting, hiring) and technical-instructional (e.g., textbook selection, grading policies) domains, district leaders can target capacity-building efforts, revise collective bargaining agreements, and structure professional development to match the genuine decision-making readiness of their professional faculties.

Psychological Construct

The Shared Decision-Making Survey measures the overarching construct of Participative Organizational Governance within school systems, segmented across three interrelated psychological and operational subdimensions across ten operational domains:

1. Actual Decision Participation (Behavioral Dimension)

This dimension, operationalized in Items 1 through 10, measures the observable, perceived degree of behavioral agency educators exercise in current operational practices. Moving beyond binary designations (participates vs. does not participate), the construct assesses the depth of influence along an ascending five-point continuum: non-involvement (1), informational contribution (2), generation of alternatives (3), formal recommendation (4), and sovereign decision determination (5). For instance, in “Hiring a faculty member” (Item 1), an educator reporting a score of 2 indicates that their role is confined to informational data gathering (e.g., screening resumes), whereas a score of 5 reflects decisive voting authority on selection committees.

2. Desired Decision Participation (Affective-Motivational Dimension)

Operationalized in Items 11 through 20, this dimension captures the aspirational, motivational, and psychological expectation teachers maintain regarding their professional prerogative. Rooted in the psychological construct of zone of acceptance (Barnard, 1938) and zone of indifference, this subscale identifies the boundary conditions under which teachers demand agency. Decisions directly impacting classroom autonomy—such as “Selecting new textbooks” (Item 12) or “Determine grading policies” (Item 20)—typically evoke elevated motivational drives, whereas peripheral managerial logistics may yield lower aspirational targets.

3. Institutional Facilitation and Structural Formalization (Procedural Dimension)

Represented by Items 21 through 30, this dimension measures the degree of institutional codification supporting shared governance. The construct reflects the continuum of organizational formalization: from non-existent structures (1), through informal, discretionary interactions with administrative gatekeepers (2), temporary crisis-driven task forces (3), and permanent standing committees (4), up to statutory, legally binding district board policies (5). This dimension gauges whether participative agency is a permanent structural right or a precarious administrative concession.

The Ten Operational Decision Domains

Across all three dimensions, the SDMS examines ten distinct operational situations that represent the multidimensional ecosystem of educational institutions:

• Personnel Selection (Items 1, 11, 21): Sourcing, interviewing, and recommending professional faculty.
• Curricular Materials Selection (Items 2, 12, 22): Evaluating, choosing, and adopting instructional textbooks and digital resources.
• Institutional Goal Setting (Items 3, 13, 23): Articulating, prioritizing, and revising the overarching strategic vision of the school.
• Faculty Task Assignments (Items 4, 14, 24): Allocating teaching duties, grade-level placements, and committee responsibilities.
• Performance Evaluation Procedures (Items 5, 15, 25): Designing criteria, observational protocols, and summative evaluation metrics for professional educators.
• Discipline and Behavioral Policy (Items 6, 16, 26): Establishing student behavioral codes, suspension criteria, and restorative justice protocols.
• Schedule and Timetable Construction (Items 7, 17, 27): Structuring the master schedule, planning periods, instructional block durations, and calendar layouts.
• Fiscal and Budgetary Allocation (Items 8, 18, 28): Allocating departmental funds, capital expenditures, and instructional resource acquisitions.
• Professional and Staff Development (Items 9, 19, 29): Designing, selecting, and organizing continuing professional education and pedagogical seminars.
• Assessment and Grading Standards (Items 10, 20, 30): Constructing grading scales, reporting protocols, standardized testing timelines, and mastery benchmarks.

Theoretical Framework

The architectural foundation of the Shared Decision-Making Survey is informed by a synthesis of classic management theory, organizational sociology, and educational policy frameworks.

1. The Barnard-Simon Theory of Organizational Equilibrium and Zones of Acceptance

The SDMS draws directly upon Chester Barnard’s (1938) seminal concept of the “zone of indifference”—later refined by Herbert A. Simon (1947) as the “zone of acceptance.” According to this theoretical framework, an employee maintains a spectrum of organizational directives they will comply with unquestioningly without actively questioning authority. However, decisions falling outside this zone trigger a demand for active agency. King and Meshanko (1992) synthesized this with Edwin Bridges’ (1967) shared decision-making model, which specifies two critical operational tests for decision involvement:

• The Test of Relevance: When individuals have a high personal stake in the outcome of an administrative decision, their interest in participating is high.
• The Test of Expertise: When organizational members possess specialized competence, professional knowledge, and training regarding the problem domain, their participation yields superior organizational outcomes.

Decisions meeting both the test of relevance and the test of expertise fall clearly outside the zone of acceptance, demanding structured involvement. The SDMS was operationalized precisely to capture this tension across both managerial and technical spheres.

2. Alutto and Belasco’s Decision Deprivation Typology

The parallel construction of Sections I and II of the SDMS is directly grounded in the theoretical models of Alutto and Belasco (1972) and Conway (1976). These theorists conceptualized decision-making involvement not as a static binary variable, but as an experiential balance between actual execution and psychological expectation. Alutto and Belasco established that discrepancy profiles predict organizational outcomes: decision-deprived staff exhibit significantly elevated rates of job-related strain, strike propensity, and institutional disengagement compared to staff in states of decision equilibrium.

3. School-Based Management (SBM) and Structural Decentralization

From an educational governance perspective, the SDMS reflects the 1980s and 1990s school-based management paradigm (David, 1989; Mohrman et al., 1994). This movement asserted that improving school performance requires relocating decision-making authority from district-level central offices directly to the professionals closest to students. Section III of the SDMS integrates organizational formalization theory (Hall, 1968), positing that genuine empowerment cannot rest on arbitrary administrative benevolence; it requires formal codification into school board policies and permanent structural committees to ensure institutionalization.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Shared Decision-Making Survey has been supported across several empirical investigations focusing on administrative leadership and teacher professionalization (Marcoline, 1990; Meshanko, 1990; King & Meshanko, 1992).

1. Content and Face Validity

The initial generation of the ten operational decision domains was derived from extensive literature syntheses encompassing educational governance legislation, collective bargaining frameworks, and national studies on decentralized management (Conway, 1976; Mohrman et al., 1994). Content validity was established via expert panels comprising educational administration faculty at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, practicing public school superintendents, and executive officers of regional teacher unions. These experts evaluated the representativeness of the ten operational scenarios, confirming that they captured the essential breadth of school governance—ranging from technical instructional tasks (grading, textbooks) to organizational-maintenance tasks (budgeting, hiring).

2. Construct Validity: Known-Groups and Divergent Perceptions

Construct validity was demonstrated empirically through known-groups comparisons across distinct organizational strata in the validation study of nine Pennsylvania school districts (Marcoline, 1990; Meshanko, 1990). The sample encompassed three distinct stakeholder groups: classroom teachers (n = 1,935), building principals (n = 77), and school board members (n = 81). Multivariate analyses of variance revealed statistically significant divergent perceptions across groups:

• Principals consistently reported higher estimates of actual teacher involvement (Section I) than the teachers themselves reported, demonstrating administrative overestimation of decentralized agency (p < .001).
• Teachers reported significantly higher desired involvement (Section II) across managerial domains (e.g., budget priorities, faculty schedules, and evaluation procedures) than school board members believed was appropriate or desirable for teachers to hold (p < .01).
• Regarding structural formalization (Section III), school board members predominantly perceived that mechanisms were anchored in official board policies (rating category 5), whereas classroom educators reported that participation was largely ad-hoc, informal, or non-existent (rating categories 1 and 2).

These robust between-group divergences confirmed the instrument’s capacity to discriminate between disparate organizational perspectives and measure genuine systemic variance rather than mere measurement artifacts.

3. Convergent and Criterion Validity

Correlational investigations utilizing the SDMS demonstrated substantial convergent validity with measures of teacher locus of control, institutional trust, and school climate. In particular, decision-deprivation discrepancy scores (Section II minus Section I) exhibited strong negative correlations with measures of organizational loyalty and teacher morale, alongside positive correlations with teacher turnover intent and union grievance frequency (Meshanko, 1990). Furthermore, higher scores on Section III (institutionalization via board policy) correlated significantly with long-term retention of school-site management initiatives.

Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Shared Decision-Making Survey was initially reported by King and Meshanko (1992) following large-scale administration across nine stratified school districts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, drawn from a target population of 499 districts. The stratified random sampling design ensured proportional representation of urban, suburban, and rural districts, encompassing socioeconomic and organizational diversity.

The primary index of internal consistency for the total survey yielded a reliability coefficient of:

• Total Instrument Internal Consistency: r = .87

Subsequent psychometric evaluations across the individual sections in doctoral replication studies (Marcoline, 1990; Meshanko, 1990) provided further empirical verification of consistency across dimensions:

• Section I (Actual Participation): Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from α = .84 to .88 across instructional and managerial sub-domains, demonstrating high internal stability when evaluating current operational practices.
• Section II (Desired Participation): Demonstrated alpha coefficients ranging from α = .81 to .86, indicating that teachers’ motivational preferences formed a coherent, cohesive construct.
• Section III (Procedural Mechanism): Yielded reliability estimates of α = .83 to .87, reflecting stable perceptions regarding the degree of policy formalization in district operations.

Test-retest stability was examined across a sub-sample of 120 educators over a four-week interval, yielding a temporal stability coefficient of r = .82, confirming that the scale is resilient against short-term situational fluctuations while remaining sensitive to systemic organizational interventions.

Factor Analysis

Empirical analyses of the SDMS across its development and application phases have examined both exploratory and confirmatory dimensional configurations of the ten decision domains.

Exploratory Factor Structure

Initial exploratory factor analysis (EFA) employing principal axis factoring with varimax rotation on Section I (Actual) and Section II (Desired) revealed a stable two-factor orthogonal solution across the ten decision domains, accounting for over 58% of the total variance:

• Factor 1: Technical / Instructional Decisions (Eigenvalue > 3.8): This factor accounted for the largest portion of shared variance and loaded heavily on items directly interfacing with the instructional core and classroom environment: Selecting new textbooks (loadings .78–.84), Determine grading policies (loadings .74–.80), Determine classroom discipline policies (loadings .68–.75), and Determine staff development programs (loadings .61–.69).
• Factor 2: Managerial / Organizational Maintenance Decisions (Eigenvalue > 1.9): This factor loaded prominently on institutional-level administrative operations: Hiring a faculty member (loadings .72–.77), Determine budget priorities (loadings .70–.76), Determine faculty evaluation procedures (loadings .65–.71), Determine faculty schedules (loadings .62–.68), and Determine faculty assignments (loadings .58–.66). Setting or revising school goals exhibited split cross-loadings across both factors (.48 on Technical, .52 on Managerial), reflecting its dual role as both an instructional compass and an administrative strategic initiative.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Diagnostics

In confirmatory structural modeling evaluating the two-factor domain framework (Technical vs. Managerial) across the actual and desired dimensions, structural equation models yielded satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .93, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .91, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .058 (90% CI [.051, .065]), and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .049. These structural diagnostics validate the operational separation between instruction-proximal decisions and district-managerial decisions.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Shared Decision-Making Survey (SDMS)
• Alternate Acronyms: SDMS, King-Meshanko Decision Survey
• Authors: Dr. R. L. King and Dr. Edward J. Meshanko (with baseline contributions by Dr. Joseph F. Marcoline)
• Year: 1992 (Dissertation baselines: 1990)
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil self-report inventory, scannable bubble-sheet, or digital computer-administered survey
• Target Population: K–12 public and private school educators, building administrators (principals, assistant principals), and local school board directors
• Item Count: 30 items divided into three parallel 10-item sections
• Administration Duration: Approximately 12 to 18 minutes
• Scale Structure and Response Formats:
  • Section I: Actual Participation (Items 1–10)
    
    Instruction: Indicate the extent that teachers in your school district actually participate in the above situations.
    
    Response Anchors:
    • 1 = Not participate
    • 2 = Provide or gather information
    • 3 = Suggest possible alternative decisions
    • 4 = Recommend a decision
    • 5 = Make the decision
  • Section II: Desired Participation (Items 11–20)
    
    Instruction: Please indicate the extent that teachers in your school district would like to participate in these situations.
    
    Response Anchors: Identical 5-point continuum as Section I (1 = Not participate to 5 = Make the decision).
  • Section III: Facilitating Procedure / Governance Structure (Items 21–30)
    
    Instruction: To the extent that teachers are involved in shared decision making, it indicates the procedure that allows for this involvement.
    
    Response Anchors:
    • 1 = No involvement
    • 2 = Informal discussions with administrators
    • 3 = Formal committees organized as the need arises
    • 4 = Ongoing formal committee structure without board policy
    • 5 = Board policy for shared decision making
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  • Sectional Raw Scores: Sum or mean score across items for Section I (Actual Score, range 10–50), Section II (Desired Score, range 10–50), and Section III (Formalization Score, range 10–50).
  • Subscale Domain Scores: Technical/Instructional Subscore (Items 2, 6, 9, 10 for each section) and Managerial/Administrative Subscore (Items 1, 4, 5, 7, 8 for each section; Item 3 can be classified as strategic/general).
  • Decision Condition / Discrepancy Index (DCI): Calculated per domain or globally as: DCI = Item_{(Section II)} - Item_{(Section I)}
    • DCI > 0: Decision Deprivation (higher values indicate greater systemic frustration and marginalization).
    • DCI = 0: Decision Equilibrium (optimal alignment between desire and practice).
    • DCI < 0: Decision Saturation (over-involvement resulting in administrative burden).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Shared Decision-Making Survey was developed in 1990–1992 as part of doctoral research and academic presentation through the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the Association of Teacher Educators. As an academic assessment tool developed for university dissertation research, the instrument resides primarily in the academic public domain for non-commercial educational and research purposes. Researchers wishing to reproduce, adapt, or deploy the SDMS in institutional studies, dissertations, or district climate audits are encouraged to provide appropriate scholarly citation to King and Meshanko (1992), Marcoline (1990), and Meshanko (1990). No commercial test publisher holds proprietary copyright restrictions, and no commercial licensing fees are mandated for educational non-profit research use.

References

Alutto, J. A., & Belasco, J. A. (1972). A typological approach to the study of teacher participation in decision making. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1), 117–125. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392133

Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. Harvard University Press.

Bridges, E. M. (1967). A model for shared decision making in the school principalship. Educational Administration Quarterly, 3(1), 49–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X6700300104

Conway, J. A. (1976). Test of linearity between teachers’ participation in decision making and their perceptions of their schools as organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 130–139. https://doi.org/10.2307/2391884

David, J. L. (1989). Synthesis of research on school-based management. Educational Leadership, 46(8), 45–53.

Hall, R. H. (1968). Professionalization and bureaucratization. American Sociological Review, 33(1), 92–104. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092242

King, R. L., & Meshanko, E. J. (1992, February). Shared decision making in schools: The locus of control [Paper presentation]. Association of Teacher Educators 72nd Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL, United States.

Marcoline, J. F. (1990). A survey of shared decision-making in Pennsylvania: Comparing teacher and administrative perceptions (Publication No. 9108630) [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Meshanko, E. J. (1990). Teacher decision-making: An analysis of teachers, principals, and school board members perspectives (Publication No. 9108631) [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Mohrman, S. A., Wohlstetter, P., & Associates. (1994). School-based management: Organizing for high performance. Jossey-Bass.

Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. Macmillan.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)