Salāmat-i kār-i Īrān (Oct 2010)
Design and determine validity and reliability of safety locus of control scale in Isfahan Steel Company workers
Abstract
Background and aimsThe degree to which a person perceives that the outcomes of the situations they experience are under their personal control is a psychological variable known asLocus of Control (LOC). Safety LOC is the construct that specifically address the internal andexternal LOC in industrial domain. Previous research suggest that safety locus of control can be assessed and used to predict safe behaviors.The main aim of this study was designing, validating, and determining the reliability of safety locus of control scale.MethodsFour hundred workers of Isfahan Steel Company participated in this study. The reliability coefficients were calculated in two different methods: test-retest and Cronbach alpha. In order to survey validity of the scale we used three methods including face validity, content validity and construct validity.ResultsWe established the content validity of the Persian translation by translating (and then back-translating) each item from the English version into the Persian version. Exploratory principal components analysis yielded a three-factor structure that explaining a considerable proportion of the total variance (63.5). Moreover the fit indices of the Confirmatory FactorAnalysis turn out were sufficient to support three-factor structure. In addition, the reliability results were acceptable, too.ConclusionIn most studies, designing, validating and determining the reliability of scales are time consuming and costly and if there are valid and reliable scales in different topics, could avoid repetitious works in researches.The results showed that the reliability and validity of Safety Locus of Control was acceptable and respectable and is suggested as an applicable scale forindustrial psychology and safety studies in Iran.
