Development and psychometric validation of the Educator Empowerment Scale (EES): assessing teachers’ attitudes, willingness, and challenges in inclusive education in India

Inclusive education aims to ensure equitable access and participation for learners with diverse needs; however, its successful implementation depends largely on teachers’ attitudes, preparedness, and institutional support. Despite progressive policy frameworks in India, teachers continue to face challenges related to limited training, inadequate resources, and insufficient systemic support. This study aimed to develop and psychometrically validate Educator Empowerment Scale (EES), a multidimensional tool to assess teachers’ willingness, attitudes, perceived preparedness, and contextual challenges related to inclusive education. The scale was developed through a systematic process involving literature review, item generation, contextual adaptation, expert validation, and pilot testing. An initial pool of 95 items was refined to 58 items across three domains: willingness to include children with varying needs, resource availability and school support, and attitudes toward inclusive education. The scale was administered to 150 primary school teachers. Item analysis demonstrated strong discriminatory power, with all corrected item–total correlations exceeding 0.30 and acceptable inter-item correlations. Internal consistency reliability was high (Cronbach’s α = 0.92), and test–retest reliability indicated excellent temporal stability (r = 0.89–0.94). Content validity indices ranged from 0.88–0.96 across domains. These findings support EES as reliable and culturally relevant instrument for assessing teacher-related factors influencing inclusive education in India.