The present research is focused on the measurement properties of the Decent Work Scale (DWS) in Australia and adds to the cumulative evidence of the measure’s international utility for psychological research into the role of work in people’s lives. The study contributes new evidence via a survey of a sample of workers ( N = 201) who completed the DWS and criterion measures of career-related factors including job satisfaction, work engagement, and withdrawal intentions. Correlated factors, higher order, and bifactor models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. All models were satisfactory and the bifactor model evinced preferable fit. The DWS Values Congruence subscale predicted all criterion measures. Workers’ incomes and ratings of their occupations’ prestige had no main effects or interaction effect on the DWS subscales. Recommendations for future research include testing the DWS’s relations with measures of mental health which are known correlates of career-related outcomes.
A survey was conducted on a sample of 159 Australian bus drivers to determine the extent to which workload and self-reported driver coping styles predicted their subjective health status. The model that was proposed incorporated the hours spent driving as a measure of workload, both adaptive and maladaptive driver coping styles, and self-report measures of need for recovery (i.e., fatigue), positive and negative affect, and physical symptoms. Results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the workload was a significant predictor of drivers' need for recovery but not of their positive and negative affect nor of their physical symptoms. Need for recovery was in turn a significant predictor of positive and negative affect and of their physical symptoms indicating that it mediates the influence of workload on positive and negative affect and physical symptoms. Two maladaptive coping strategies added to the prediction of need for recovery, as well as to the prediction of negative affect, even after controlling for the influence of need for recovery. One adaptive coping strategy added to the prediction of positive affect. Strategies for management of fatigue in bus drivers should focus on the assessment and remediation of maladaptive coping strategies which impact of drivers' need for recovery which in turn predicts positive and negative affect and physical symptoms.
This paper reports a study of adult clients' experience of My Career Chapter, which is a theoretically-informed, qualitative career assessment and counselling procedure. My Career Chapter engenders personal exploration through a client's writing and reading aloud a career-related autobiography, which is formulated on the basis of structured steps and a sentence-completion process. In a predominantly qualitative, mixed method design (i.e., QUAL+quan), interpretative phenomenological analysis of six interview transcripts constructed three major clusters representative of clients' experiences: implications for instructions and guidelines; induction of personal contemplation and self-reflection; and positive emotional experience. Secondary quantitative data aligned with the primary qualitative results. The results of this study were consistent with and extend upon previous research; and were indicative of the safety and potential of My Career Chapter as a narrative career assessment and counselling procedure for adults.
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