The quiet quitting scale: Development and initial validation

Abstract

<abstract><sec> <title>Introduction</title> <p>COVID-19 pandemic causes drastic changes in workplaces that are likely to increase quite quitting among employees. Although quiet quitting is not a new phenomenon, there is no instrument to measure it.</p> </sec><sec> <title>Objective</title> <p>To develop and validate an instrument assessing quiet quitting among employees.</p> </sec><sec> <title>Methods</title> <p>We identified and generated items through an extensive literature review and interviews with employees. We carried out the content validity by content experts and we calculated the content validity ratio. We checked face validity by conducting cognitive interviews with employees and calculating the item-level face validity index. We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to investigate the quiet quitting scale (QQS) factorial structure. We checked the concurrent validity of the QQS using four other scales, i.e., Copenhagen burnout inventory (CBI), single item burnout (SIB) measure, job satisfaction survey (JSS) and a single item to measure turnover intention. We estimated the reliability of the QQS measuring Cronbach's alpha, McDonald's omega, Cohen's kappa and intraclass correlation coefficient.</p> </sec><sec> <title>Results</title> <p>After expert panel review and item analysis, nine items with acceptable corrected item-total correlations, inter-item correlations, floor and ceiling effects, skewness and kurtosis were retained. Exploratory factor analysis extracted three factors, namely detachment, lack of initiative and lack of motivation, with a total of nine items. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed this factorial structure for QQS. We found statistically significant correlations between QQS and CBI, SIB, JSS and turnover intention confirming that the concurrent validity of the QQS was great. Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega of the QQS were 0.803 and 0.806 respectively.</p> </sec><sec> <title>Conclusion</title> <p>QQS, a three-factor nine-item scale, has robust psychometric properties. QQS is an easy-to-administer, brief, reliable and valid tool to measure employees' quiet quitting. We recommend the use of the QQS in different societies and cultures to assess the validity of the instrument.</p> </sec></abstract>

Moral Resilience Reduces Levels of Quiet Quitting, Job Burnout, and Turnover Intention among Nurses: Evidence in the Post COVID-19 Era

“…In our study, Cronbach's alpha for the factors "responses to moral adversity", "personal integrity", "relational integrity", and "moral efficacy" were 0.665, 0.782, 0.783, and 0.765, respectively. We used the Quiet Quitting Scale (QQS) to measure levels of quiet quitting among nurses [50]. The QQS has a three-factor structure: detachment (four items), lack of initiative (three items), and lack of motivation (two items).…”

Impact of Workplace Bullying on Quiet Quitting in Nurses: The Mediating Effect of Coping Strategies

“…In our study, Cronbach's alpha for the NAQ-R was 0.963. We used the Quiet Quitting Scale (QQS) to measure the levels of quiet quitting among our nurses [25]. The Greek version of the QQS has been validated in a sample of nurses in Greece [26].…”

“…A large study in the business sector in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic by Gallup showed that half of the employees are quiet quitters [24]. In the same period, a study of the phenomenon was also initiated in the healthcare sector, with the development of a reliable and valid tool for measuring quiet quitting [25], which revealed that in this sector too, more than 50% of employees opt for quiet quitting, highlighting the urgency of the issue [26]. In particular, nurses had the highest rates of quiet quitting (67.4%) compared to other healthcare professionals [26].…”

Translation and validation of the revised “Rushton Moral Resilience Scale” in Greek

“…The MDT takes values from 0 to 10 with higher values indicate higher levels of moral distress. Also, we used the "Quiet Quitting Scale" (QQS) to measure levels of quiet quitting among nurses (Galanis et al, 2023e, a). The QQS takes values from 1 to 5 with higher values indicate higher levels of quiet quitting.…”