The Team as Secure Base (TASB) Questionnaire

Abstract

The Team as Secure Base (TASB) Questionnaire is an original psychometric instrument developed by Viktoria Behrova and Laura Biggart (2025) to quantify the perceived secure base function within professional work teams. Rooted in the Secure Base Theory, the underlying TASB model (Biggart et al., 2017) posits that characteristics such as team availability, reliability, and sensitivity facilitate internal mental representations that assure team members they will receive support during periods of high stress or challenge. The development of the TASB Questionnaire was initiated to address a lack of existing, specialized measures focused on assessing this specific team dynamic.

The scale development process was rigorous, involving item generation based on existing literature, original interviews with child and family social workers, and expert feedback gathered through three phases of the Delphi method. The initial version of the questionnaire is extensive, comprising 207 items designed to assess five core dimensions of the secure base function as perceived in both supervisors and co-workers. Initial development phases focused heavily on establishing content validity using expert consensus methods, with the authors noting that subsequent factor analysis is required to optimize and reduce the final item pool.

Keywords

Acceptance, Availability, Cooperation, Sensitivity, Team as Secure Base Model, Team Membership, Work Teams, Social Work, Perceived Social Support, Workplace Health and Well Being Measures, Professional Personnel Measures.

Authors

Behrova, Viktoria, Biggart, Laura.

Purpose

The primary objective of the Team as Secure Base (TASB) Questionnaire is to systematically measure the level of perceived support and psychological safety experienced by employees, specifically within the demanding environment of social work teams. By quantifying the secure base function, the instrument aims to provide insights into team dynamics that contribute to resilience and well-being among staff.

Construct

The TASB Questionnaire measures the psychological construct of the Team as Secure Base, an adaptation of attachment theory applied to organizational settings. This construct emphasizes that a team acts as a reliable anchor, allowing individuals to engage in challenging tasks (exploration) knowing they have a dependable source of comfort and assistance (secure base) to return to. The model suggests that team availability, reliability, and sensitivity are the core mechanisms that enable this psychological safety.

The construct is operationalized across five key dimensions that relate to both supervisory and peer relationships, reflecting how team members experience the secure base function from different sources within the work environment:

• Availability
• Sensitivity
• Acceptance
• Cooperation
• Team Membership

Validity

Initial validation efforts focused exclusively on establishing content validity, a critical first step given the novel application of the secure base concept in this context. The instrument development involved a rigorous, multi-phase process utilizing the Delphi method, gathering both qualitative feedback and quantitative ratings from subject matter experts (social work professionals).

Results from the three phases of the Delphi study demonstrated strong expert consensus. Quantitative consensus reached 100% agreement on seven of the ten proposed TASB domains. The dimension related to “Co-operation of co-workers” showed the lowest, though still reasonable, quantitative consensus at 78.6%. The authors confirmed that this initial phase successfully established the relevance and representativeness of the item pool based on expert judgment.

Reliability

As the initial development phase focused on item generation and content validation via the Delphi method, quantitative reliability data (such as internal consistency or test-retest reliability) are currently not available for the TASB Questionnaire.

Factor Analysis

No formal Factor Analysis has been conducted or reported on the current 207-item pool. The authors explicitly stated that factor analytic methods are required in future research phases to reduce the extensive item pool and empirically confirm the hypothesized five-factor structure (Availability, Sensitivity, Acceptance, Cooperation, and Team Membership) underlying the scale.

Instrument

Test Type: Original Inventory/Questionnaire

Format: The Team as Secure Base (TASB) Questionnaire consists of 207 items. The questionnaire conceptually captures five TASB dimensions for supervisors and co-workers: Availability, Sensitivity, Acceptance, Cooperation, and Team Membership.

Language Available: English

Population Group: Human; Male; Female

Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older); Thirties (30-39 yrs); Middle Age (40-64 yrs); Aged (65 yrs & older)

Population Details: The initial development and validation sample consisted of Social Work Experts residing in the United Kingdom, ranging in age from 39 to 70.

Test Methodology: Test Validity; Content Validity; Qualitative Assessment Methods.

Keywords

Psychological Measurement, Organizational Psychology, Team Dynamics, Attachment Theory, Social Work, Workplace Support, Secure Base.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Biggart, Laura: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1233-9787

Affiliation Email addresses: Biggart, Laura: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Biggart, Laura: [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: Contact Corresponding Author (Laura Biggart) for permission regarding use or dissemination.

Fee: No fee reported for use or access.

Test Year: 2025

Reference’s

Behrova, V., & Biggart, L. (2025). First-stage development of a Team as Secure Base questionnaire using a Delphi study. Journal of Social Work Practice, 39(1), 69–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650533.2024.2433210

Items of the the Team as Secure Base (TASB) Questionnaire

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The specific items comprising the 207-item scale are not detailed in the provided source material.