The validity and measurement equivalence of a brief safety climate questionnaire across casual and permanent workers

Abstract

BackgroundSafety climate is an effective leading indicator of safety incidents and accidents. However, frequently safety climate measures are only employed in times of crisis rather than for regular monitoring to identify and remediate safety issues before becoming critical. ObjectiveThis study aimed to validate a 24-item version of the 50-item Nordic Occupational Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) that was developed for use as a regular monitoring tool. MethodAnalyses undertaken included confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and assessments of construct validity, external validity, concurrent validity, measurement equivalence, and benchmarking capabilities. CFA to examine external and construct validity included a combined sample of disability support workers and hospitality employees (N = 474), an independent sample of students in casual employment (N = 122), and employees from a vocational education and training (VET) organisation (N = 539). Concurrent validity was assessed by comparing correlations between the 50-item and 24-item versions of the NOSACQ with health and wellbeing outcome variables. External validity of the NOSACQ-24 was further established using the casual student workers and a sample employees from the VET organisation (N = 53). Paired samples t-tests examined the safety climate scores for the 50-item and 24-item measures across all participant samples to evaluate the benchmarking capability of the NOSACQ-24. ResultsThe NOSACQ-24 demonstrated a comparable factor structure to the NOSACQ-50. External, construct, and concurrent validity for the NOSACQ-24 were largely supported, as were measurement equivalence and benchmarking capabilities. ConclusionUse of the NOSACQ-24 is supported, and future applications are discussed.