Development of an instrument to assess happiness in the workplace Dr Laurel Edmunds and Jessica Pryce-Jones Rationale Happiness at work brings many benefits to employees and employers alike (Lyubomirsky, King, Diener, 2005). Assessment in the workplace is important for establishing level of happiness, identifying issues, monitoring and evaluating related interventions. However no dedicated instrument exists to do this. Here we describe the development of a new instrument, the iOpener People and Performance Questionnaire (iPPQ), which aims to address this omission.
Early development
Methods
The iPPQ is grounded in several studies – we used a ‘bottom up’ approach to the development. In addition to 10 years of experience working in this field, the early development included:
Our samples are approximately 60% male; 80% Caucasian, 15% Asian and 5% from other ethnicities, representing 79 nationalities.
The early development and following three studies can be seen in the flow diagram.
The iPPQ currently has three sections: 1: Demographics, other descriptive questions and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). 2: Items that generate the factor structure (this is unidirectional with a 7-point scale: not at all to entirely) 3: Other relevant supporting items (this was a 7-point Likert scale: agree to disagree). However, data were not normally distributed and so these were changed to unidirectional questions (entirely to not at all).
Interviews (n = 67) and focus groups to capture what workplace happiness meant to employees. Two studies (n = 400+) to assess what employees felt was important to them personally and in the workplace. Rogers’ Humanistic Theory was used as a framework for the questionnaire; i.e. the tendency for individuals to actualise their potential.
Initial study, 2005
67 Interviews and 14 focus groups, 2006
Importance studies, 2006 Study 1 (n = 193; 70 items) Exploratory factor analysis, 2007 Study 2 (n = 593; 25 items), 2007-8 Study 3 (n = 1940; 25 items) Confirmatory factor analysis, 2008
Fig 1: Flow diagram of research studies
Study 1 A pool of 70 items derived from the qualitative research was tested with 193 subjects. Using exploratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation, a five factor construct was identified. Study 2 Items were reduced to 26 and tested with 406 subjects. The same protocol as Study 1 was followed. At this point those items we know were important but had cross-loaded, or had been identified in the literature as relevant, were added into a separate section in the iPPQ (Section 3). At this point 33% of the items were reversed, to prevent response bias.
Study 3 Questions about job title, sector, organisation, dependents etc. were included in Section 1 for this study. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted with 1940 subjects. Section 3 items were made unidirectional with scoring reversed compared with Section 2. Currently 36% of the items are reversed. Reliability and validity tests Test-retest: partially completed Sensitivity to change: on-going Validity: compared with Q12 (Buckingham and Coffman, 1999; as items also unidirectional and derived from interviews)
Results Sample Subjects in Study 3 have been chosen to illustrate the profile of samples. See Table 1.
Eigenvalues and variance explained Results for the three studies are shown in Table 2.
Gender under 21
Male
Female
Total
%
45
80
125
6.5
Confirmatory factor analysis Table 4: Confirmatory factor analysis Components
Table 3: Cronbach’s Alpha for the five components in Studies 1 – 3
Table 2: Eigenvalues and variance explained in Studies 1 – 3
Table 1: Gender and age of subjects in Study 3
Age
Cronbach’s alpha and number of items Results for the three studies are shown in Table 3.
Items
Study 1
Study 2
Study 3
Study 1
Study 2
Study 3
N = 193
N = 406
N = 1940
N = 193
N = 406
N = 1940
Eigenvalue
Variation
Eigenvalue
%
Variation
Eigenvalue
%
ά
Variation %
No. of items
ά
No. of items
ά
No. of items
21-30
336
248
584
30.4
31-40
452
218
670
34.9
Contribution
23.65
24.9
7.90
27.8
7.22
27.8
Contribution
.858
19
.889
17
.767
7
41-50
202
176
378
19.7
Conviction
13.64
21.6
6.66
19.9
5.19
19.9
Conviction
.795
16
.853
14
.693
5
51-60
82
57
139
7.3
Culture
9.67
18.4
4.51
18.6
4.83
18.6
Culture
.810
14
.826
9
.736
above 60
13
9
22
1.1
Commitment
7.08
13.0
4.00
17.7
4.61
17.7
Commitment
.795
6
.764
5
1130
788
1918
99.1
Confidence
16.06
22.1
2.92
16.0
4.16
16.0
Confidence
.898
15
.900
14
NB 5 participants did not record their gender and 18 did not record their age.
Total
100%
100%
100%
Total
70
Are your views ignored?
.975
How insecure do you feel in your current job?
.949
How much does your boss respect you?
.866
Can you raise issues that are important to you?
.832
Would you recommend working at your organisation to a friend?
.816
Do you have a sense of getting things done at work?
.709
5
How effective do you think you are at your job?
.949
.779
6
How efficiently are you able to get things done at work?
.937
.702
3
Are you resilient when it comes to coping with difficult times?
.878
How much do you feel your work has a positive impact on the world?
.706
59
26
Conclusions The iPPQ has the potential to assess happiness related issues in the workplace. The exploratory and confirmatory analyses identified and confirmed a 5 factor construct with relatively robust internal validities.
.979
3
.949
The iPPQ is available on-line as is used to generate personal, team and organisation reports. We are currently running a viral campaign with an aim to get 10,000 participants so that we can refine the questionnaire further. This research is also underpinning a book by Jessica Pryce-Jones to be published by Wiley Blackwell next year.
Fig 2 Scree plot for confirmatory factor analysis
Do you agree that your stakeholders give you positive feedback?
2
How motivated do you feel while at work?
NB component order is based on Study 3 findings
Principal component analysis identified five constructs.
1
The instrument is being refined with usage. Early reliability and validity results show the instrument to be stable and compare well where appropriate with the Q12.
How much do you like your job?
.951
Do you appreciate the values that your organisation stands for?
.911
How fair is the culture at work?
.839
How much do you like your colleagues?
.803
How much in control do you feel over your day-to-day activities?
.798
Do you agree that you often feel a strong burst
4
5
.950
of positive emotion at work? How much do your colleagues respect you?
.883
Do you trust the vision of your organisation’s leaders?
.755
Do you feel you are doing something worthwhile?
.692
Are you interested in your work?
.686
How much do you wish to leave your current job?
.971
How well does your job fit with your initial expectations of it?
.945
How much do you feel you are not living up to your potential?
.923
NB positive versions of questions shown in table
Contact
References
Dr Laurel Edmunds Head of Research Email laurel.edmunds@iopener.co.uk DDI +44(0)1865 517786
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L. & Diener E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.
iOpener Twining House, 294 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7ED | Tel +44 (0)1865 511522 | Fax +44 (0)1865 552918 www.iopener.co.uk
Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155.
Buckingham, M, Coffman, C. (1999). First, break all the rules. Simon & Shuster, NY.
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