Development and Testing of the Workplace Climate Questionnaire

Abstract

The goal of this research was to develop and test a self-completed questionnaire for use in the routine assessment of work-related stress in a high-technology industrial organization. The initial phase of the study involved reviewing the existing literature to identify items and scales developed to assess workplace stress and strain. The initial item pool contained 92 items divided into 11 domains. Through a process of content validation using focus group discussions, the item pool was reduced to a 38-item questionnaire covering eight domains: demands, control, support, role, relationships, rewards, change, and communications. These 38 items, along with other items included to enable psychometric testing, were converted to a web-based questionnaire. The entire workforce of the organization was invited to complete this questionnaire as part of the pilot study phase.Data from the pilot study were used to test scaling assumptions, evaluate the factor structure, estimate internal consistency reliability, and examine criterion and construct validity of the 38-item Workplace Climate Questionnaire. The distribution of responses to questionnaire items tended to be skewed, with more respondents scoring among the more positive categories. With the exception of the role and relationships scales, no substantial floor and ceiling effects were seen for all the other scales. Each of the 38-item Workplace Climate Questionnaire scales exhibited satisfactory internal-consistency reliability estimates. Items within the demands, control, support, and role scales loaded on the hypothesized scales, while items within the relationships, change, and rewards failed to load on the hypothesized scales.The pilot study provided support for criterion validity of the 38-item Workplace Climate Questionnaire. As hypothesized, individual scales in the questionnaire correlated positively with similar constructs in existing occupational stress instruments. The pilot study also provided support for construct validity of the questionnaire. The demands, control, support, relationships, rewards, and change scales predicted the risk of poor self-reported mental health.Revisions to the 38-item questionnaire resulted in the 22-item Workplace Climate Questionnaire covering the following six domains: demands, control, role, rewards, support, and relationships. The 22-item questionnaire reduces respondent burden and retains satisfactory psychometric properties in terms of factor structure, reliability, criterion validity, and construct validity.