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DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqg038
Background Although job satisfaction research has been carried out for decades, no recent
overview of job satisfaction instruments and their quality is available.
Aim The aim of this systematic review is to select job satisfaction instruments of adequate
reliability and validity for use as evaluative tools in hospital environments.
Methods Systematic literature searches were performed in the Medline and PsycInfo
databases. First, the construct of job satisfaction was operationalized by generating
examine the conceptual foundation of job satisfaction. with the conjunction ‘or’. The search terms and their
Instruments that have adequate reliability and construct operationalization are listed in Table 1.
validity were assessed for their completeness with respect
to work factors that contribute to job satisfaction.
The ‘responsiveness’ of an instrument to changes is General inclusion criteria
part of its (discriminant) validity [11]. The term
To restrict the number of studies, general inclusion
‘responsiveness’ was originally used in health research
criteria were set. The inclusion criteria used were
and little attention has been paid to this issue in the field
of industrial and organizational psychology. Marx et al. publication between 1988 and 2001, peer-reviewed and
[12] define responsiveness as the performance of an written in English or Dutch. Because job satisfaction is a
instrument over time. According to Leong and Vaux [13], time-sensitive subject, the choice was made to time-frame
job satisfaction instruments are often used in intervention the search to 14 years. In addition, the abstract of an
studies and for evaluative purposes. One example in the article had to be present in the databases. Articles from
health care sector is when new management models and dissertation journals were not included. Studies pub-
their effect on job satisfaction is examined [14–16]. These lished before 1988 were only allowed if they were added
instruments need to be sensitive enough to measure through the snowball technique. Next, assessment was
changes in behaviour. In this study, studies were selected made of the quality of job satisfaction instruments that
a
All the words are connected with the conjunction ‘ or’.
used to judge the content validity. The work factors were Table 2. Psychometric quality criteria in this study
categorized in 11 related domains.
Psychometric aspects Criteria
These domains were: work content (variety in skills,
complexity of a job, or the challenge in a job, role Internal consistency scale total >0.79
ambiguity, routine); autonomy (individual responsibility Internal consistency scale range coefficient >0.79
Test–retest coefficient scale total >0.69
for work, control over job decisions); growth/develop- Test–retest range of scales >0.69
ment (personal growth and development, training, or Convergent validity scale total >0.49
education); financial rewards (salary, fringe benefits, or Convergent validity sub-scale correlation range >0.49
employee benefits); promotion (possibility of career Discriminant validity <0.50
Content validity Contains at least 4
advancement, or job level); supervision (support of of 11 work factors
supervisor, recognition of supervisor, or being treated
with fairness); communication (counselling oppor-
tunities, feedback); co-workers (professional relations
with co-workers, or adequacy of co-workers); meaning- The Job in General Scale
fulness; workload (time pressure subjectively perceived,
tedium, social problems, interpersonal conflict, or stress); The JIG is a global job satisfaction instrument [11] and is
and work demands (involuntarily doing extra work or part of the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) [32]. The JIG has
rewards, operating procedures, co-workers, work and including a neutral response choice. Reliability and
communication. Some of the items categorized as construct validity: the time interval used to assess the
‘operating procedures’ refer to workload, for example the test–retest reliability was 2 weeks, and the sample size was
items ‘I have too much paperwork’ and ‘I have too much 37 persons. For validation, Traynor and Wade [30]
to do at work’. The sub-scales and the items independ- correlated the instrument with a Price Waterhouse
ently cover 9 out of the 11 standard work factors. instrument, an instrument that covers work factors such
as work volume, working relations, career development,
Emergency Physician Job Satisfaction Scale etc. To demonstrate the construct validity, the authors
gave information on its concurrent validity. This type of
The EPJS [28] is a multidimensional instrument validity is closely related to convergent validity. In
designed for physicians working at an emergency demonstration of the discriminant validity, the definition
department. The questionnaire has 79 items, including a was different from that used in this study. Content
global job satisfaction scale with 11 items. The response validity: the MJS measures five work factors: personnel
format is a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from satisfaction; workload; professional support; salary; and
‘strongly disagree (–3) to ‘strongly agree (3)’. Reliability prospects and training. Within the sub-scale of personnel
and construct validity: the time interval of the test–retest satisfaction, items are included that refer to variation,
reliability is not known. Studies of the EPJS give no challenge and satisfaction. All the 11 standard work
information about its responsiveness. Content validity:
Table 3. Continued
The instruments that met the quality criteria are represented in bold. Internal consistency = Cronbach’s alpha; test–retest = Pearson correlation. Type of instrument
(Type): 1, multidimensional instrument for jobs in general; 2, multidimensional instrument for specific job; 3, global job satisfaction instrument. Abbreviations: GJS,
Table 4. Criteria for the evaluation of the content validity: work factors included in (parts of) the sub-scales of job satisfaction instruments
JSS (social services EPJS (physicians MMSS (nurses) MJS (community NSS (nurses)
employees) emergency nurses)
department)
Autonomy – + + +a +a
Work content + + – + +a
Communication + – + + +
Financial rewards + + + + –
Growth/development – – – + +
Promotion + – + + +
Co-workers + + + + +
Meaningfulness + – – + –
Supervision/feedback/recognition + +a + + +
Workload +a +a + + –
Work demands + + + +a +
Total score ** * ** *** **
JSS, Job Satisfaction Scale; EPJS, Emergency Physician Job Satisfaction Survey; MMSS, McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale; MJS, Measure of Job Satisfaction;
NSS, Nurse Satisfaction Scale. Total score: +, work factor included in item or sub-scale; –, work factor not included; ***good, less than one missing work factor;
**moderate, two or three missing work factors; *unsatisfactory, more than three missing work factors.
a
Two or fewer items of the instrument refer to the work factor.
only instrument to provide information on respon- ences in individual scores are ignored in the total mean
siveness. Ironson et al. [11] concluded that global score of a multi-item instrument.
instruments respond to treatments differently than It is relevant to both organizations and employees that
multidimensional instruments. Global instruments are attention is being paid to the assessment of job
less suitable for detecting high and low areas of job satisfaction. If job satisfaction is low in an organization,
satisfaction. If a global instrument is used with the aim of interventions can be implemented that may improve the
measuring a change in job satisfaction, Wanous et al. [53] quality of the employee’s work life. In this way, negative
suggest that a single-item instrument should be used influences in the workplace, such as turnover and health-
rather than a multi-item instrument, because the differ- related problems (for example, occupational stress), can
198 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE
be prevented. Furthermore, Locke [3] reported that job measured different types of validity, such as convergent,
satisfaction was negatively associated with mortality due criterion and concurrent validity, under the term con-
to heart disease and fatigue. He suggested that longevity struct validity. However, because these types of construct
is positively associated with job satisfaction. validity are closely related, if the convergent validity
The MJS [30] had the most extensive coverage of was not measured, the reported criterion or concurrent
content validity. However, two work factors, ‘autonomy’ validity was taken into account. A fourth difficulty was
and ‘growth/development’, were covered minimally by the different interpretation researchers gave to the same
this instrument. An advantage of this scale is the response work factor described in meta-analyses and reviews. For
format, in which employees are explicitly asked to rate job example, it is possible that the factor ‘communication’ in
satisfaction. This format, which aids content validity, is one review indicates the contact an employee has with his
not used in most job satisfaction instruments. Elizur [54] or her co-workers, while it is used in another review with
argues that there is almost no difference in item load a slightly different meaning, such as instrumental com-
between instruments developed to measure work charac- munication, or the contact one has with one’s supervisor.
teristics and those developed to measure job satisfaction. This limitation was partly eliminated by categorizing the
He considered that the response scale should ask for the work factors that were closely related.
degree of satisfaction with a certain work factor, or the With these limitations in mind, this study delivered
importance of it. The EPJS [28] had the lowest content a contribution to transparency in the variety of job
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