Validity and Reliability of the Original and Abridged Role Conflict and Ambiguity Scales

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to assess the validity and reliability of the original 29-item and the abridged 14-item role conflict and ambiguity scales developed by Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman (1970) for a sample of 362 university administrators. Although many reliability and validity studies have been conducted on managerial, technical, and clerical employees in several different types of organizations, few have been undertaken in academic settings and fewer still have examined both the original as well as the abridged scales. The results of Study I indicated that the abridged scales provide a conceptually meaningful, parsimonious, and reliable measure of the two role stress constructs. In addition, the results of Study II demonstrated that the role conflict scale could distinguish among administrators known to experience high levels of this form of role stress.