Investigating the Psychometric Properties of Decent Work Questionnaire

Given increasing evidence that challenges the implicit autonomy assumption in the field of vocational psychology (that all people have the autonomy to make career choices), the psychology of working theory (PWT) expands the current vocational research and practice by taking an inclusive consideration that people are facing contextual constraints and thus may not be able to make free choices in their career. The purpose of this study was to investigat the psychometric properties of Decent Work Scale in employees of one hospital in Mashhad city.

The sample consisted of 180 employees who were selected by census method, who completed Decent Work (2017), Social Support (1998), Adjustment (1961), and Job Satisfaction questionnaires were completed.

Evaluation of internal consistency of questionnaire by Cronbach's alpha method and correlation of each question with total score, showed that questions of this scale have acceptable internal consistency. In order to investigate the validity of the Decent Work Scale, several methods were used. The exploratory factor analysis with principal components method and varimax rotation, as expected, showed that 15 items of the Decent Work Scale were loaded on five factors of individually directed safe working conditions, access to healthcare, adequate compensation, free time, and complemental values. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that 3 items of this scale significantly loaded on the five-factorial and the five-factorial model has a better fit with the data than the one-factorial model. The results of the convergent validity showed there is a positive correlation between the total score of the scale and the scores of safe working conditions, access to healthcare, adequate compensation, free time, and complemental values subscales. Also, the correlation of Decent Work Scale with job satisfaction (0.59), job adjustment (0.26) and social support (0.30) has been calculated.

It should be noted that the Decent Work Scale in the workplace can better predict the five factors of safe working conditions, access to healthcare, adequate compensation, free time and rest, and organizational value. Overally, the study findings showed that this scale, similarity to the West research, is composed of five factors and has acceptable validity and reliability. Consequently, it can be applied to measure this construct in Iranian employees.