Champion Behaviors Scale

1. Abstract

The Champion Behaviors Scale (also documented in implementation literature as the Program Advocacy Scale) is a specialized psychometric assessment instrument developed by Tianyi Ma, Cassandra L. Tellegen, and Matthew R. Sanders in 2023 at the Parenting and Family Support Centre, The University of Queensland. Designed specifically within the domain of implementation science and community psychology, the instrument evaluates the frequency and breadth of advocacy and leadership actions enacted by practitioners tasked with delivering evidence-based practices (EBPs), particularly evidenced-based parenting interventions such as the Triple P — Positive Parenting Program. Comprising 13 items scored along an unweighted 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (“Does not apply to me at all”) to 3 (“Definitely applies to me”), the instrument bifurcates practitioner advocacy into two empirically validated latent dimensions: Public Champion Behavior and Personal Champion Behavior.

Initial content validation was executed through iterative consultations among subject matter experts, clinical researchers, and frontline professionals with extensive clinical and community training experience. In empirical psychometric testing among an Australian cohort of accredited evidence-based program providers, the tool demonstrated sound internal consistency, yielding Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of α = 0.74 for the Public Champion Behavior subscale and α = 0.83 for the Personal Champion Behavior subscale. Exploratory factor analysis supported a robust two-factor structure accounting for approximately 42% of the cumulative variance. Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis with correlated item error terms confirmed acceptable model fit: χ²(63) = 270.84, p < .001, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.914, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.061, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.070 (90% CI: [0.061, 0.078]). The scale provides researchers, organizational psychologists, and public health program administrators with a psychometrically sound, low-burden instrument to quantify frontline championing, test implementation mechanisms, and predict sustained institutional uptake of evidence-based family interventions.

2. Keywords

Champion Behaviors Scale, Program Advocacy Scale, Evidence-Based Practice, Implementation Science, Parenting Practitioners, Public Champion Behavior, Personal Champion Behavior, Triple P, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Factor Analysis, Psychometrics, Public Health Initiatives

3. Authors

The Champion Behaviors Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically evaluated by clinical and developmental psychologists based at the Parenting and Family Support Centre within the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia:

• Tianyi Ma, Ph.D. — Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. ORCID: 0000-0002-0499-1054. Email: [email protected]
• Cassandra L. Tellegen, Ph.D. — Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
• Matthew R. Sanders, Ph.D. — Professor of Clinical Psychology and Founder of the Triple P — Positive Parenting Program, Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.

Corresponding Author Contact:
Tianyi Ma, Ph.D.
Parenting and Family Support Centre, The University of Queensland
13 Upland Road, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Electronic mail: [email protected]

4. Purpose

The translation of evidence-based interventions from highly controlled randomized clinical trials into routinely delivered community health services encounters persistent structural, social, and psychological bottlenecks. Within public health, social work, and pediatric mental health, a prominent barrier to sustainable program execution is the attrition of practitioner commitment once formal external implementation supports diminish. While organizational leadership and administrative mandates set institutional policy, the actual operational success and survival of evidence-based programs frequently depend upon informal, bottom-up agency exercised by dedicated frontline professionals known as “program champions.”

The Champion Behaviors Scale was formulated to directly address a critical measurement void within implementation research: the absence of a brief, psychometrically validated questionnaire explicitly targeted at capturing the proactive behaviors that practitioners exhibit when advocating for, protecting, and popularizing an evidence-based parenting program. Although the theoretical significance of champions has long been acknowledged across organizational science, empirical inquiry in community health settings had been constrained by imprecise definitions and a reliance on single-item or post-hoc qualitative evaluations.

The clinical and research applications of the Champion Behaviors Scale encompass several key domains:

• Implementation Monitoring and Process Evaluation: Researchers conducting implementation-effectiveness hybrid trials can employ the instrument to track whether implementation strategies (e.g., leadership coaching, train-the-trainer models) effectively foster grassroots advocacy among delivery personnel over time.
• Identification and Support of Key Agents: In institutional contexts—such as family welfare services, community mental health clinics, and primary care networks—the tool allows administrators to identify natural champions who actively mobilize peers, dismantle organizational skepticism, and model enthusiastic adherence to program fidelity.
• Structural Equation Modeling of Implementation Outcomes: The scale enables health services researchers to examine nomological networks, evaluating champion behaviors both as an endogenous outcome (predicted by self-efficacy, workplace climate, professional autonomy, and perceived intervention utility) and as an exogenous predictor of program reach, dosage delivered, and long-term program sustainment.
• Quality Improvement and Workforce Development: By differentiating between public institutional advocacy and interpersonal grassroots endorsement, service directors can tailor workforce development initiatives, addressing deficits in specific behavioral repertoires needed to secure community stakeholder buy-in.

Ultimately, the instrument operationalizes program advocacy as an active, behavioral manifestation rather than a static practitioner attitude. By focusing on explicit self-reported actions, the Champion Behaviors Scale provides an empirical methodology for dissecting how individual practitioner agency fuels broader system transformation.

5. Psychological Construct

The Champion Behaviors Scale measures frontline program championing, conceptualized as discretionary, goal-directed behavioral patterns enacted by human service practitioners to promote, defend, and optimize the systemic adoption of an evidence-based intervention. Rather than treating championing as a monolithic or unifactorial disposition, the construct is operationalized as a multidimensional behavioral profile containing two correlated but structurally distinct sub-domains: Public Champion Behavior and Personal Champion Behavior.

Public Champion Behavior

Public Champion Behavior refers to explicit, institutional, and outward-facing advocacy activities executed within formal organizational, inter-agency, or civic forums. These behaviors entail higher reputational visibility and strategic coordination. Practitioners demonstrating elevated public championing leverage their professional capital to systematically embed the intervention into institutional policy, budget allocations, and inter-organizational referral pipelines.

Key behavioral indicators under this dimension include:

• Presenting program outcomes and clinical utility at departmental assemblies, multi-agency coalitions, and executive stakeholder briefings.
• Actively lobbying organizational decision-makers and resource gatekeepers to secure sustained funding, structural time release, and resource allocation for program delivery.
• Authoring or contributing to formal program evaluations, public health newsletters, internal organizational reports, or local media engagements advocating for system-wide adoption.
• Publicly defending the evidence-based framework against external resistance, administrative inertia, or skepticism from competing ideological service models.

Public championing involves navigating organizational politics, challenging structural roadblocks, and engaging in overt external outreach to build sustainable delivery capacity.

Personal Champion Behavior

Conversely, Personal Champion Behavior reflects micro-level, relational, and informal advocacy occurring across horizontal peer-to-peer relationships, direct client interactions, and routine workplace communications. These actions rely on relational trust, social modeling, and intrinsic practitioner enthusiasm rather than formal authority or platform presentations.

Representative behavioral indicators encompass:

• Sharing practical delivery successes, clinical breakthroughs, and experiential problem-solving tips informally with colleagues during team huddles or hallway interactions.
• Mentoring, encouraging, and coaching hesitant or newly certified co-workers who experience anxiety or implementation fatigue regarding program manuals and protocols.
• Advocating the specific value and philosophy of the intervention directly to families, community referral partners, and auxiliary service professionals on an interpersonal, day-to-day basis.
• Expressing sustained personal enthusiasm and behavioral commitment toward the intervention within one’s immediate workgroup, thereby shaping the local normative professional climate.

While public behaviors establish the macro-structural scaffolding for program viability, personal champion behaviors establish the micro-social norms, affective safety, and collective self-efficacy required to prevent practitioner burnout and procedural drift.

6. Theoretical Framework

The formulation of the Champion Behaviors Scale is grounded in the convergence of three foundational paradigms within behavioral science: Diffusion of Innovations Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, and the framework of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).

Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers; Greenhalgh et al.)

Everett Rogers’ classical Diffusion of Innovations framework posits that the dissemination of novel technologies or operational paradigms through social networks does not occur passively; rather, it hinges critically upon key actors known as “opinion leaders” and “champions.” Greenhalgh and colleagues (2004) synthesized this within complex health service organizations, establishing that interventions rarely possess sufficient intrinsic momentum to achieve institutionalization independently. Champions serve as the indispensable human catalyst: individuals who form an intense personal commitment to an innovation, link it to organizational priorities, and expend personal and social capital to navigate internal resistance. The Champion Behaviors Scale operationalizes the theoretical behaviors identified by Greenhalgh et al.—such as informal influence, marketing the innovation, and clearing organizational hurdles—into psychometrically measurable subscales.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (Organ; Podsakoff et al.)

Within organizational psychology, Dennis Organ and subsequent scholars defined Organizational Citizenship Behavior as individual discretionary behavior, not directly or explicitly recognized by formal reward systems, that in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization. More specifically, champion behaviors reflect helping behavior, organizational civic virtue, and boosterism (the promotion of the organization’s products and practices to external constituents). When practitioners deliver evidence-based programs, adhering to minimum manual guidelines constitutes in-role performance, whereas actively persuading colleagues, defending the protocol to leadership, and conducting uncompensated community advocacy represent discretionary, extra-role organizational citizenship behaviors that safeguard the intervention against institutional decay.

Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura)

Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory provides the psychological mechanics underlying champion behavior initiation and maintenance. According to this framework, human agency operates through a triadic reciprocal causation model involving cognitive/personal factors, behavioral patterns, and environmental influences. Frontline championing is sustained by high self-efficacy (the practitioner’s conviction in their capability to deliver and advocate the program) and favorable outcome expectancies (the belief that promoting the program will alleviate child emotional problems, reduce familial dysfunction, and elevate institutional service quality). In turn, personal championing provides observational modeling for peer practitioners, stimulating vicarious learning and collective agency across the workplace system.

7. Validity

The construct validation of the Champion Behaviors Scale was systematically executed during its initial design and subsequent empirical investigation by Ma, Tellegen, and Sanders (2023).

Content and Face Validity

Content validity was established through structured consensus-building among multi-disciplinary researchers, senior implementation consultants, and highly experienced clinical trainers at the Parenting and Family Support Centre. Candidate items were constructed to cover the theoretical universe of both internal/peer-level and external/systems-level advocacy. Items were systematically vetted for semantic clarity, ecological relevance to service providers, and alignment with modern implementation nomenclature, ensuring high face validity among frontline human service practitioners.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was evaluated in a field sample of Australian practitioners formally trained and accredited in the Triple P — Positive Parenting Program. As detailed in the psychometric evaluation, exploratory factor analysis validated that a two-dimensional solution accurately mirrored the underlying empirical item covariances, successfully differentiating public systemic behaviors from interpersonal personal behaviors without cross-loadings that compromised interpretability.

Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) further substantiated construct validity. Although the initial baseline measurement model displayed marginal fit due to residual covariance between two functionally similar items (Item 3 and Item 4, which capture overlapping nuances of localized professional sharing), the specification of an error covariance between these items yielded an adequate structural fit (χ²(63) = 270.84, p < .001; CFI = 0.914; SRMR = 0.061; RMSEA = 0.070, 90% CI [0.061, 0.078]), confirming the construct integrity of the dual-factor architecture.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

Within the comprehensive structural equation modeling (SEM) framework presented by Ma et al. (2023), the scale demonstrated strong nomological validity through theoretically coherent associations with key implementation constructs. Champion behaviors were positively and significantly predicted by practitioners’ program self-efficacy, positive attitudes toward evidence-based practice, and supportive organizational climates. Furthermore, champion behaviors served as a robust statistical mechanism linking practitioner training mastery to substantive implementation outcomes, including elevated client referral rates and higher cumulative program delivery volume. This confirmed that the scale does not merely assess passive professional satisfaction, but validly measures action-oriented behavioral determinants of implementation success.

8. Reliability

The Champion Behaviors Scale exhibits acceptable to good internal consistency reliability across its subscales in human service samples, satisfying standard psychometric thresholds for applied research instruments.

Internal Consistency Metrics

In the primary empirical validation study conducted by Ma, Tellegen, and Sanders (2023) involving accredited Australian evidence-based parenting program practitioners:

• Personal Champion Behavior Subscale: Demonstrated strong internal consistency, yielding a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of α = 0.83. This high coefficient indicates strong inter-item correlation, confirming that items within this subscale reliably measure the shared latent attribute of relational, peer-focused advocacy.
• Public Champion Behavior Subscale: Produced an acceptable internal consistency reliability estimate of α = 0.74. Given the broad range of institutional activities tapped by public advocacy (e.g., funding presentations, institutional reports, community media engagement), this level of internal consistency indicates good construct coherence without excessive item redundancy.

Measurement Precision and Scale Robustness

Both subscales demonstrate solid item-total correlations, with individual items loading robustly on their assigned latent constructs. The cumulative 13-item instrument provides stable measurement across practitioners operating in diverse organizational settings, ranging from government departments of child protection and public health units to independent non-governmental family support organizations. While test-retest reliability across multi-month intervals remains an objective for ongoing longitudinal investigation, the internal consistency statistics provide strong psychometric support for utilizing subscale mean scores in multivariate structural models.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent dimensionality of the Champion Behaviors Scale was comprehensively evaluated through sequential exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic methodologies.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial structural discovery, the 13 candidate items were subjected to exploratory factor analysis using principal axis extraction and oblique rotation (reflecting the theoretical expectation that public and personal championing behaviors are positively correlated facets of a unified advocacy domain). Multiple empirical criteria were evaluated to determine factor retention:

• Kaiser’s Criterion: Inspection of initial eigenvalues revealed two distinct factors displaying eigenvalues substantially greater than 1.0.
• Scree Plot Analysis: Visual analysis of the Cattell scree plot confirmed a sharp inflection point following the second factor, indicating that a two-factor extraction captured the underlying data structure parsimoniously.
• Variance Explained: All 13 items demonstrated satisfactory factor loadings (> 0.40) onto their respective dimensions, with zero detrimental cross-loadings. The two retained factors accounted for 42% of the total cumulative variance across the item pool.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To establish structural replication and rigorously evaluate model fit, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using maximum likelihood estimation within a structural equation modeling environment.

The initial independent cluster model (two correlated latent factors without cross-loadings or error covariances) yielded marginal fit indices, highlighting localized strain within the residual matrix. Inspection of modification indices indicated significant residual covariance between two similarly phrased items within the scale (Item 3 and Item 4). These items shared conceptual overlap regarding direct, interpersonal practitioner information sharing. Upon specifying an error covariance between the measurement error terms of Item 3 and Item 4, the respecified model exhibited adequate fit to the empirical data across standard structural fit conventions:

• Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit: χ²(63) = 270.84, p < 0.001
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.914 (surpassing the standard 0.90 baseline threshold for acceptable model fit in social science field samples)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): 0.061 (well below the stringent 0.08 cutoff, denoting negligible absolute residual differences between observed and model-implied covariance matrices)
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): 0.070, with a narrow 90% confidence interval of [0.061, 0.078] (satisfying the ≤ 0.08 guideline for reasonable fit)

These analytic results definitively support the operationalization of champion behaviors as a correlated, two-dimensional construct comprising Public and Personal advocacy dimensions.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Champion Behaviors Scale is structured as an efficient, self-administered practitioner inventory. Below are the administrative, psychometric, and scoring specifications for the tool:

• Test Type: Original self-report inventory / organizational survey instrument.
• Alternate Nomenclature: Program Advocacy Scale.
• Target Population: Human service practitioners, healthcare providers, psychologists, social workers, family support workers, and educators trained in delivering structured evidence-based interventions.
• Age Demographics: Adult practitioners (18 years of age and older).
• Administration Modality: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire or secure digital survey platform (e.g., Qualtrics, REDCap).
• Estimated Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes, ensuring minimal response burden.
• Total Item Count: 13 items.
• Subscale Structural Breakdown:
  • Public Champion Behavior Subscale (items indexing institutional, outward, formal, and systems advocacy).
  • Personal Champion Behavior Subscale (items indexing peer-to-peer, informal, client-facing, and relational advocacy).
• Response Format: 4-point Likert-type rating scale configured as follows:
  • 0 = Does not apply to me at all
  • 1 = Applies to me to a slight extent
  • 2 = Applies to me to a moderate extent
  • 3 = Definitely applies to me
• Scoring and Computational Rules:
  • Subscale scores are calculated by averaging the numerical responses of the items corresponding to that subscale (sum of item scores divided by the number of completed items within the dimension).
  • Possible subscale scores range continuously from 0.00 to 3.00, where higher scores represent higher engagement in championing behaviors.
  • A cumulative Total Champion Behavior score can be derived by computing the grand mean across all 13 items.
  • No reverse-scored items are included; all statements reflect positive operationalizations of advocacy behavior.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Test Year of Initial Publication: 2023.
• Copyright and Intellectual Property: © 2023 Tianyi Ma, Cassandra L. Tellegen, and Matthew R. Sanders. The scale was developed within the Parenting and Family Support Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia.
• Commercial Status: Non-commercial instrument.
• Usage Fee: Free of charge for academic, research, non-commercial public health monitoring, and educational evaluation purposes.
• Permissions and Access Policy: Researchers and healthcare administrators wishing to administer, translate, or adapt the Champion Behaviors Scale must contact the corresponding author to request formal permission and obtain the authorized item booklet and administration instructions.
• Correspondence Contact for Permissions:
  Dr. Tianyi Ma
  Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland
  13 Upland Rd, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
  Email: [email protected]

12. References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.

Greenhalgh, T., Robert, G., Macfarlane, F., Bate, P., & Kyriakidou, O. (2004). Diffusion of innovations in service organizations: Systematic review and recommendations. The Milbank Quarterly, 82(4), 581–629. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0887-378X.2004.00325.x

Ma, T., Tellegen, C. L., & Sanders, M. R. (2023). Predictors of champion behaviors in an evidence‐based parenting program: A structural equation modeling approach. American Journal of Community Psychology, 71(1-2), 211–223. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12623

Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome. Lexington Books.

Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Paine, J. B., & Bachrach, D. G. (2000). Organizational citizenship behaviors: A critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature and suggestions for future research. Journal of Management, 26(3), 513–563. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630002600307

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.

Sanders, M. R., & Kirby, J. N. (2014). A public health approach to improving parenting and promoting children’s well-being. Child Development Perspectives, 8(4), 250–257. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12086

13. Items of the Scale