Measuring positive and negative occupational states at work: A structural and differential item functioning analysis

Abstract

This article reports on the structural validation of the Positive and Negative Occupational States Inventory, which measures positive and negative states at work. The first aim was to check for the impact of item wording. The second aim was to check for interactions between items and gender or age. More than 31,000 data collected in 63 Belgian and French companies were used. Results of structural equation show that meaning better represents the tool structure than wording, at least for the negative occupational state. Results of differential item functioning analyses show that gender and age have no impact on workers' answers. It is concluded that future studies should check for the impact of initial NOSI and POSI levels. Future studies should also examine reciprocal relationships between working conditions on the one hand and NOSI and POSI on the other.