The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale

Abstract

The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale (SDS) is a pioneering, student-report assessment tool designed to evaluate the self-determination skills, beliefs, and behaviors of adolescents with cognitive, intellectual, and developmental disabilities, as well as youth without disabilities. Developed by Michael L. Wehmeyer and published in 1995 under the auspices of The Arc of the United States, the scale operationalizes Wehmeyer’s Functional Model of Self-Determination. The instrument evaluates self-determination across four essential characteristics: Autonomy, Self-Regulation, Psychological Empowerment, and Self-Realization. Comprising 72 operational scoring opportunities distributed across these four core subscales, the assessment utilizes multiple response formats, including four-point Likert scales, open-ended story-completion problem-solving vignettes, paired forced-choice self-efficacy statements, and dichotomous self-knowledge agreements.

Extensive psychometric investigations conducted across nationwide samples of transition-age youth with learning disabilities, intellectual disability, emotional and behavioral disorders, and neurotypical peers have confirmed the scale’s robust construct validity, internal consistency, and clinical utility. Total scale internal consistency estimates yield a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .90, with subscale reliabilities ranging from α = .62 to α = .90. Inter-rater reliability for scored open-ended problem-solving vignettes consistently exceeds 85% agreement. Confirmatory factor analytic investigations have substantiated a hierarchical structure wherein a general higher-order Self-Determination factor subsumes the four distinct, correlated latent dimensions. The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale has played a transformative role in special education transition services, Individualized Education Program (IEP) goal formulation, longitudinal post-school outcome prediction, and the advancement of causal agency theory within educational and psychological research.

Keywords

The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale, self-determination, autonomy, self-regulation, psychological empowerment, self-realization, intellectual disability, transition assessment, causal agency theory, special education, psychometrics, Michael Wehmeyer

Authors

The primary architect and principal investigator of The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale is Michael L. Wehmeyer, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Special Education, Ross and Mariana Beach Distinguished Professor, and Senior Scientist at the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas. Dr. Wehmeyer developed the instrument in collaboration with Kathy Kelchner, M.Ed., during his tenure as Assistant Director of the Department of Research and Program Services at the National Headquarters of The Arc of the United States in Arlington, Texas. The research project was funded through a cooperative grant from the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).

Dr. Wehmeyer is widely acknowledged as the international authority on self-determination for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. His theoretical formulations, empirical inquiries, and psychometric instruments have shaped special education legislation, instructional practices, and developmental psychology paradigms globally. Inquiries regarding the development and conceptualization of the instrument can be directed to the Beach Center on Disability, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA.

Purpose

The transition from secondary education to adulthood represents an exceptionally vulnerable juncture for adolescents with disabilities. Historically, transition planning under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was characterized by paternalistic, professional-driven decision-making processes where students with disabilities occupied passive roles. Recognizing that self-determination is a direct predictor of successful adult outcomes—including competitive integrated employment, independent community living, postsecondary educational attainment, and enhanced subjective well-being—Dr. Wehmeyer engineered The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale to serve two principal objectives: educational assessment for transition intervention planning, and empirical research evaluation.

From an applied clinical and pedagogical standpoint, the primary purpose of the scale is to provide special educators, school psychologists, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and transition coordinators with a structured, individualized profile of an adolescent’s strengths and instructional needs across the key competencies required for adult autonomy. Rather than relying on proxy reports from parents or teachers, the SDS prioritizes student voice by asking adolescents to directly evaluate their own behavior, decision-making, problem-solving, and personal agency. The instrument pinpoints specific deficits in daily independent living, community engagement, career preparation, interpersonal conflict resolution, internal locus of control, and realistic self-knowledge. This granular information directly informs the formulation of measurable postsecondary goals and self-directed IEP objectives.

From an empirical research perspective, The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale was designed to validate Wehmeyer’s Functional Model of Self-Determination and establish an empirically validated metric capable of measuring changes resulting from educational interventions (e.g., the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction [SDLMI], Whose Future Is It Anyway?). Longitudinal outcome studies use the SDS to investigate how self-determination during high school mediates post-school outcomes across diverse diagnostic categories, cultural backgrounds, and socio-environmental contexts.

Psychological Construct

Self-determination, within the framework of The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale, is defined not merely as an absolute state of complete independence, but as “acting as the primary causal agent in one’s life and making choices and decisions regarding one’s quality of life free from undue external influence or interference” (Wehmeyer, 1996, 2003). An individual’s actions are characterized as self-determined if they reflect four essential characteristics: Autonomy, Self-Regulation, Psychological Empowerment, and Self-Realization.

1. Autonomy

Autonomy refers to an individual’s ability to act according to their own personal preferences, interests, beliefs, and values, independent of undue external coercion or direction. In the SDS, autonomy is operationalized across two overarching subdomains, which are further delineated into six functional behavioral areas:

• Independence: Involves routine personal care, family-oriented domestic functions (e.g., preparing meals, laundering clothes, doing household chores), and interactive behaviors with the immediate environment (e.g., utilizing public services, scheduling appointments, conducting commercial transactions).
• Acting on the Basis of Preferences, Beliefs, Interests, and Abilities: Encompasses active decision-making and participation in recreational and leisure pursuits, community involvement and social networking (e.g., volunteering, participating in organized youth groups), post-school vocational trajectories (e.g., engaging in career planning, gaining paid employment, exploring occupational interests), and personal self-expression (e.g., styling hair, selecting clothing, allocating personal financial resources, room decoration).

2. Self-Regulation

Self-regulation constitutes the metacognitive and behavioral mechanisms that allow an individual to monitor, evaluate, and adapt their goal-directed conduct in complex, dynamic social environments. The SDS conceptualizes self-regulation through two structural paradigms:

• Interpersonal Cognitive Problem-Solving: Assessed via narrative story-completion vignettes where students identify a problem, evaluate interpersonal conflict, generate relevant sequential pathways, and bridge the discrepancy between an initial dilemma and a specified positive outcome.
• Goal Setting and Task Performance: Assessed through the articulation of explicit postsecondary aspirations (e.g., desired future living arrangements, career objectives, transportation methods) and the sequential action plans required to execute those goals.

3. Psychological Empowerment

Psychological empowerment reflects the cognitive, motivational, and affective beliefs an individual holds regarding their capacity to influence their social and personal reality. Rooted in psychological theories of perceived control, psychological empowerment integrates three interrelated constructs:

• Locus of Control: The degree to which individuals attribute life events and consequences to their own intentional behaviors (internal locus) versus fate, luck, or powerful external authorities (external locus).
• Self-Efficacy: An individual’s conviction that they possess the necessary cognitive, technical, and social repertoire to execute specific actions required to achieve designated attainments.
• Outcome Expectancy: The cognitive calculation that performing a given behavior will reliably result in a desired, reinforcing outcome.

4. Self-Realization

Self-realization refers to an individual’s comprehensive, realistic understanding of themselves, including their strengths, weaknesses, unique talents, and distinct limitations, paired with the ability to leverage this self-knowledge to navigate their life. Self-realizing individuals accept who they are, demonstrate basic self-worth and self-esteem, acknowledge emotional vulnerabilities without shame, and proactively identify compensatory strategies to overcome structural or personal limitations.

Theoretical Framework

The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale is explicitly grounded in the Functional Model of Self-Determination (Wehmeyer, 1996, 1999), which later evolved into Causal Agency Theory (Shogren et al., 2015). In developing this model, Wehmeyer challenged prevailing models in educational psychology that equated self-determination with physical independence or autonomous motor competence. Instead, the Functional Theory defines self-determination by the function a behavior serves within an individual’s life rather than the specific motor skills demonstrated.

Historically, psychological self-determination had been primarily conceptualized through the macro-motivational lens of Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (SDT), which centers on the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. While complementary, Wehmeyer’s functional model was developed specifically within special education and developmental psychology to account for the unique systemic, cognitive, and physical barriers faced by people with disabilities. In Wehmeyer’s model, being a “causal agent” does not require total independent task completion; rather, it entails authoring one’s choices, directing caregivers, expressing preferences, and actively participating in the decision-making processes that govern one’s personal affairs.

Under this theoretical framework, self-determined behavior emerges developmentally across the lifespan as a child acquires component elements of self-determination. These developmental components include:

1. Choice-making skills;
2. Decision-making skills;
3. Problem-solving skills;
4. Goal-setting and attainment skills;
5. Self-management, self-monitoring, and self-reinforcement strategies;
6. Self-advocacy and leadership skills;
7. Internal locus of control beliefs;
8. Perceptions of self-efficacy and outcome expectancy; and
9. Self-awareness and self-knowledge.

When these component elements interact with environmental opportunities, reciprocal social scaffolding, and systematic instructional support, they coalesce into the four essential characteristics evaluated by the scale: Autonomy, Self-Regulation, Psychological Empowerment, and Self-Realization.

Validity

The construct, criterion-related, convergent, and discriminant validity of The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale have been rigorously documented in both the original norming project and numerous follow-up psychometric investigations involving diverse adolescent populations.

Construct Validity

During scale development, Wehmeyer and Kelchner (1995) administered the experimental battery to a national norming cohort of 440 high school students with diverse classifications, including intellectual disability (mild and moderate), specific learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, and peers without disabilities across five states. As hypothesized by functional theory, statistically significant developmental differences were identified: older adolescents demonstrated systematically higher scores on the Autonomy and Psychological Empowerment subscales than younger students, reflecting the normative maturation of autonomous decision-making.

Furthermore, construct validity is evidenced by the scale’s ability to differentiate between individuals placed in highly restrictive settings versus those provided with inclusive educational opportunities. Students educated in general education environments with supported access consistently scored significantly higher in Autonomy and Self-Regulation than peers educated in segregated self-contained settings, confirming the theoretical postulate that self-determination is dynamically responsive to environmental choice opportunities.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity was evaluated by correlating SDS scores with well-established instruments measuring related psychological constructs. The SDS Psychological Empowerment subscale demonstrated moderate to strong positive correlations with the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (r = .43 to .52, p < .001) and general self-efficacy batteries. The Autonomy subscale demonstrated robust correlations with measures of functional adaptive competence, such as the Adult Life Skills Battery (r = .58, p < .001) and autonomous behavior subscales of the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) Adaptive Behavior Scale.

Discriminant validity was established by evaluating the relationship between SDS scores and general intelligence (IQ). While adaptive behavior and problem-solving correlate moderately with cognitive performance, total self-determination scores demonstrated relatively low correlations with measured full-scale IQ (r = .18 to .26), confirming that self-determination is a distinct psychological construct separate from general intellectual quotient.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Longitudinal predictive validity constitutes one of the scale’s strongest psychometric attributes. In a landmark multi-year prospective study, Wehmeyer and Palmer (2003) followed 94 high school graduates with cognitive disabilities one and three years post-graduation. Students who scored in the high self-determination range on The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale were significantly more likely to have achieved competitive integrated employment, earned higher hourly wages, maintained paid health insurance benefits, and transitioned successfully to independent living arrangements than their lower-scoring counterparts.

Reliability

The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale exhibits high reliability across varied disability classifications, educational tiers, and demographic cohorts.

Internal Consistency

In the original normative sample of 440 adolescents with cognitive and developmental impairments, the overall scale internal consistency, calculated via Cronbach’s alpha, was α = .90. Subscale analyses revealed the following coefficient values:

• Autonomy Subscale: α = .90 (reflecting high internal consistency across all 32 independence and choice items).
• Self-Regulation Subscale: α = .73 (acceptable reliability for complex, multidimensional open-ended problem-solving tasks).
• Psychological Empowerment Subscale: α = .73 (satisfactory for 16 paired forced-choice items).
• Self-Realization Subscale: α = .62 (acceptable for a brief, 15-item dichotomous self-concept screening measure).

Inter-Rater Reliability

Because the Self-Regulation section (items 33–38) utilizes an open-ended narrative format where students verbally supply or handwrite the steps required to resolve an interpersonal dilemma, inter-rater scoring reliability is critical. Wehmeyer and Kelchner established an objective scoring rubric rating student responses on a 0 to 2-point scale based on the relevance, logical structure, and practical utility of the proposed problem solutions. Inter-rater reliability evaluations between independent trained scorers demonstrated an overall percentage agreement of 87.5%, with Cohen’s kappa (κ) exceeding .82, indicating strong inter-rater consensus.

Test-Retest Stability

Stability evaluations conducted across a 3- to 4-week test-retest interval among stable transition students yielded a temporal stability coefficient of r = .84 for the overall score, with subscale test-retest correlations ranging from r = .71 (Self-Regulation) to r = .88 (Autonomy). These statistics confirm that the instrument measures stable cognitive and behavioral traits while remaining sensitive to targeted instructional interventions over longer durations.

Factor Analysis

The underlying factor structure of The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale has been extensively evaluated using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to verify its alignment with the theoretical model.

Exploratory Factor Analyses

Initial principal components analyses with varimax and oblimin rotations confirmed four distinct, correlated latent dimensions that closely mirrored the four theoretical constructs postulated by Wehmeyer. Within the primary 32-item Autonomy subscale, factor extractions revealed two prominent first-order factors: Daily Independent Functioning (items loading > .45 on personal grooming, home chores, and environment interactions) and Preference-Based Self-Direction (items loading > .50 on leisure choices, post-school career trajectories, and personal lifestyle expressions).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Model Fit

Subsequent confirmatory structural analyses (e.g., Shogren, Wehmeyer, Palmer, Soukup, Little, et al., 2008) examined alternative structural models to determine whether self-determination is best conceptualized as four unrelated domains, a single unidimensional trait, or a second-order hierarchical model. CFA results decisively favored a second-order hierarchical model wherein a general higher-order Self-Determination factor directly accounts for the shared variance among the four primary latent first-order factors:

• Autonomy: Standardized path loading onto Higher-Order Self-Determination: γ = .78
• Self-Regulation: Standardized path loading: γ = .54
• Psychological Empowerment: Standardized path loading: γ = .68
• Self-Realization: Standardized path loading: γ = .61

Model fit indices across confirmatory evaluations have demonstrated good psychometric fit to the data: Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .048 (90% CI [.042, .054]), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .945, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .938, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .051. Metric and scalar measurement invariance testing has corroborated that the structural properties and item intercepts hold equivalent across gender groups and across distinct disability classification categories (e.g., specific learning disabilities versus intellectual disability).

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale is an adolescent self-report assessment composed of 72 operational scoring items. While the assessment is designed as a student-completed instrument, it allows for flexible accommodation protocols, including read-aloud accommodations, scribe transcription, or individual one-on-one structured interviews for students with complex physical, reading, or expressive communication needs.

• Target Population: Adolescents with intellectual, learning, developmental, or emotional disabilities transitioning from secondary school to adult life; also validated for neurotypical high school peers.
• Administration Time: Approximately 30 to 45 minutes; can be administered across multiple shorter sessions to mitigate test fatigue.
• Format: Student self-report questionnaire with open-ended and forced-choice components.
• Number of Subscales: Four (4) primary domains:
  • Autonomy: 32 items (Items 1–32)
  • Self-Regulation: 9 scored questions (Items 33–38 narrative problem-solving vignettes; Items 39–41 post-school outcome goals)
  • Psychological Empowerment: 16 items (Items 42–57 forced-choice dyads)
  • Self-Realization: 15 items (Items 58–72 dichotomous statements)
• Response and Scoring Architecture:
  • Autonomy (Items 1–32): Evaluated on a 4-point Likert-type frequency scale reflecting performance opportunity and behavioral engagement:
    • 0: I do not even if I have the chance.
    • 1: I do sometimes when I have the chance.
    • 2: I do most of the time when I have the chance.
    • 3: I do every time I have the chance.

    (Autonomy subdomain maximum possible score = 96 points).

  • Self-Regulation (Items 33–38): Story-completion cognitive problem-solving scenarios. Students read (or listen to) a beginning scenario and an ending, and provide the intermediate actions taken to resolve the dilemma. Scored objectively:
    • 0 points: No answer, illogical response, or step that fails to connect beginning to end.
    • 1 point: Response provides a plausible step, but lacks detail or effectiveness.
    • 2 points: Response provides a logical, highly effective, self-directed solution resolving the scenario.

    (Problem-solving scenario maximum possible score = 12 points).

  • Self-Regulation Goal Setting (Items 39–41): Open-ended questions assessing post-graduation plans (Living, Working, Transportation). Scored:
    • 0 points: No goal articulated or completely unrealistic.
    • 1 to 3 points: Points awarded based on the specificity of the articulated goal and the identification of concrete action steps to accomplish it.

    (Goal-setting maximum score = 9 points; Total Self-Regulation maximum score = 21 points).

  • Psychological Empowerment (Items 42–57): Forced-choice paired statements. Students select which of two contrasting statements best characterizes their personal belief system. One statement represents an empowered/self-directed stance (scored 1 point), and the other represents an externally controlled/disempowered stance (scored 0 points). (Maximum possible score = 16 points).
  • Self-Realization (Items 58–72): Dichotomous paired responses (Agree vs. Disagree / Yes vs. No) evaluating accurate self-appraisal, self-acceptance, and self-worth. Scored 1 point for the self-realizing response and 0 points for the non-self-realizing response. (Maximum possible score = 15 points).
• Total Score Range: 0 to 148 points, which can be converted into national normative percentiles, subscale profile raw scores, and domain-level percentage mastery scores to identify relative personal strengths and instructional intervention targets.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale was authored and finalized in August 1995 by Dr. Michael L. Wehmeyer and Kathy Kelchner. The scale, along with its comprehensive Procedural Guidelines manual, was published by The Arc of the United States under nonexclusive educational dissemination rights funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Availability and Fees: The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale is in the public domain and is made available free of charge for educational, clinical, and non-commercial academic research purposes. Special educators, school psychologists, researchers, and disability advocates may reproduce, administer, and interpret the scale without paying royalty fees or purchasing proprietary test kits. The complete manual, scoring keys, and student assessment protocols are accessible via The Arc of the United States and the University of Kansas Beach Center on Disability archives.

References

The following peer-reviewed publications and institutional reports provide comprehensive psychometric, theoretical, and empirical documentation for The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale:

• Nowicki, S., & Strickland, B. R. (1973). A locus of control scale for children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 40(1), 148–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033978
• Shogren, K. A., Wehmeyer, M. L., Palmer, S. B., Forber-Pratt, A. J., Goldsberry, T. R., & Lopez, S. J. (2015). Causal agency theory: Reconceptualizing a functional model of self-determination. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 50(3), 251–263. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24827552
• Shogren, K. A., Wehmeyer, M. L., Palmer, S. B., Soukup, J. H., Little, T. D., Garner, N., & Lawrence, M. (2008). Understanding the construct of self-determination: Examining the relationship between The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale and the AIR Self-Determination Assessment. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 33(2), 94–107. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534508407311395
• Wehmeyer, M. L. (1996). Self-determination as an educational outcome: Why is it important to children, youth and adults with disabilities? In D. J. Sands & M. L. Wehmeyer (Eds.), Self-determination across the life span: Independence and choice for people with disabilities (pp. 17–36). Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
• Wehmeyer, M. L. (1999). A functional model of self-determination: Describing development and implementing instruction. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 14(1), 53–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/108835769901400107
• Wehmeyer, M. L., & Kelchner, K. (1995). The Arc’s Self-Determination Scale: Procedural guidelines. The Arc of the United States.
• Wehmeyer, M. L., & Palmer, S. B. (2003). Adult outcomes for students with cognitive disabilities three-years after high school: The impact of self-determination. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 38(2), 131–144. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23879949

Items of the Scale