A psychometric evaluation of the job crafting questionnaire (JCRQ) among employees working in Jordanian universities

Abstract

Purpose Job crafting is recently argued to have five dimensions (Nielsen et al., 2017): increasing challenging demands, decreasing social demands, increasing social job resources, increasing quantitative demands and decreasing hindrance demands. The purpose of this study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties and construct validity of the five-factor model of job crafting, introduced by using a sample of Jordanian university employees. Design/methodology/approach A pre-determined survey on was used. Accordingly, 513 professional workers in several universities completed the survey. Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of the scale, whereas series of confirmatory factor (CFA) analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted to assess the scale’s factorial and discriminant validity. Other tests were also conducted. Findings As predicted, the proposed model best fit the data. Statistical analysis yielded several findings. First, the results of the reliability test revealed that the five sub-scales of job crafting had significant and sufficiently strong internal consistencies. Second, the results showed that the 15 items loaded significantly with a factor loadings more than 0.50. Third, the CFA results confirmed that the five-factor model best fitted the data in comparison to the one-factor model. Finally, the construct validity of JCRQ-15 was confirmed through its correlation with several validating variables. Research limitations/implications Some limitations need to be addressed. First, the sample came from participants working in specific Jordanian universities which may limit the generalization that could be made from the results to other occupations. Second, due to the cross-sectional design of the present study, the question remains whether the JCRQ-15 are stable overtime. Third, the common methods bias might be a problem because it is one of the main sources of measurement error in validation studies using self-reported scales. Originality/value The present study provided an early supportive evidence for the use of the JCRQ-15 as a valid measure of job crafting in the Jordanian context.