Abstract

The present study is about the application of JAWS (Job Affected Well-being Scale) that has been designed by Katwyk, Fox, Spector, Kelloway (2000) for measuring the different affects that have an effect on people’s perceptions on their subjective job-related well-being. The first part of the paper will present the findings of the reliability analyses of the Turkish version of the scale. The second part will include the results of the analyses of participants’ total JAWS scores by the AnswerTree. The findings of the present study showed that the most effective predictors of participants’ subjective job-related well-being were age, and years of work. The findings will be discussed in relation to the applicability of the scale in studies on industrial/organizational psychology.

Keywords: Multidimensional Scaling, reliability analysis, AnswerTree, Job-related affective well-being scale (JAWS)

Job plays an important role both in serving the vital and psycho-social needs of humans. Working and having a job have a crucial importance in human life. The meaning of the job and the positive or negative interactions between job and human are effecting job satisfaction. Besides the working conditions, type of the job, its characteristics like creativity, responsibility, stability, doing the job with interest and pleasure are effecting people’s emotions regarding their jobs. Emotions are very complex experiences. Some authors are accepting emotions as subjective matters and giving importance only to discover them by communicating with persons who had experienced such emotions (Deiner, Ed & Suh, Eunkook, 2000) Sentimentality explains the inner experiences of humans. In a broader sense this concept means also one’s enjoy or dislike. Emotions have five basic components. These are:

1- Physical (outer) and psychological (inner) stimulation

2- Emotions which express themselves by having pleasure or not

3- Being aware of the experience and appreciation

4- Behaviors that can be explained emotionally

5- Results of the emotional behavior

Authors who are interested in the cognitive side of the emotions, points to the cognitive awareness of the subjective experiences. Authors who mentioned that emotions can not be handled as cognitive matters but as passions, attitudes, feelings and judgments, said that emotions are unconscious experiences. According to a wide acceptable belief, there are 4 basic emotions which arouse similar reactions in every human being. These are: Sadness, furry, fear and happiness.

Since the ancient times mankind is searching for the ways of well-being and try to understand his absolute position. Every person wants to add some colors in his/her life. Many studies showed that, well-being can not be explained only by being in good economic conditions. Cognitive, personal and conditional characteristics of human’s are assessed with different models in order to explain the structural design of well-being.

There are many words and concepts regarding to the situation of well-being. These are: Happiness, joy, satisfaction, prosperity and quality of life. Personal well-being evaluates one’s life in view of his/her own perspective. This perspective depends on self evaluation, positive and/or negative emotions and life satisfaction.

Subjective well-being is an area of psychology which evaluates personal well-being situation. Evaluations made by humans regarding the intense and type of their emotions can be summed in two areas; cognitive concepts (for example life and job satisfaction) and having pleasure are on one side and sadness, furry, frustration and similar negative emotions on the other side. This evaluation can be done for one’s whole life or for a part of it. Positive and negative emotions are separated by Russel (1980) by using the multi-dimensional techniques into different sub-groups. Davidson (1993) and Watson & Clark pointed out that different emotional groups are effecting the well-being situation differently.

It is known that, job is an important life area and job satisfaction is correlated with well-being. If the work environment found to be valuable and unique and if the performing job seemed as a meaningful and creative event, job satisfaction will be effected positively. Studies about job satisfaction are concentrated on the emotional and cognitive meanings which are loaded on job.

Happiness can be gained with the success in job. This is an work ethic of the western countries. Work life can give people a chance of success and happiness. So people are able to catch their happiness through success and productivity.

In studies about job satisfaction, integration with the performed job, takes place in the center of satisfaction. A person who has high satisfaction, are those who has integrated themselves with their jobs with the help of their positive characteristics and skills. On the other side people who have negative emotions against their jobs are faced with job stress and it is known that there is a correlation between jobs related emotions and stress.

In western countries well-being does not differ from job to job. In Turkey, there is no study regarding to the correlation of job related well-being and job happiness. The studies done by Yetim (1985), Şahin, Batıgün, Durak (1997) showed that there were some differences among low waged jobs in terms of happiness. Also there exist no studies about correlation among subjective well-being and job relations. In literature, self reporting method was used for evaluating subjective well-being. However this method has some deficiencies and can be affected by the transitional emotional status of the person, but the reliability and validity of this method had been proofed several times (Yetim, 2001).

In Warr’s model (1987) different emotions were found responsible for job related well-being and the emotional aspects of the two dimensional model are discussed regarding to dependence and independence. Katwyk, Fox, Spector and Kelloway (2000) established a scale for measuring job related well-being. This scale can be divided into four sub groups like: High Pleasure- High Arousal (HPHU), High Pleasure- Low Arousal (HPLA), Low Pleasure-Low Arousal (LPLA), Low Pleasure- High Arousal (LPHA). These four dimensions are obtained from the distribution of the emotions among the two axis of pleasure and arousal. The axis of pleasure can asses the general job related happiness and the arousal axis the motivation of one person. For example at the cross point of positive emotional situation with high arousal, person shows a happy and active picture (items of the scale: cheerful, elated, ecstatic, enthusiastic, and inspired). At the cross point of positive emotional situation with low arousal, a person shows a peaceful but passive picture (items of the scale: satisfied, content, at ease, proud, pleased). On the other side, a person with low pleasure and high arousal is anxious and tense (items of the scale: disgusted, frightened, furious, frustrated, and intimidated). A person with low pleasure and low arousal shows a passive picture without motivation (items of the scale: fatigued, depressed, bored, confused, and miserable)

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the Turkish version of the scale in terms of its reliability and validity and thereafter finding out the job-related well-being situation of our university staff regarding to some basic variables like age, gender, working tenure, type of job and marital status.

 Material and Method

The present study was designed to test the Turkish translation of JAWS ( Job Related Affective Well-being Scale) which was developed by Katwyk, Fox, Spector and Kelloway (2000). First of all, the scale was translated from English into Turkish by following the back-tranlation procedure. In order to minimize the translation mistakes, the text was edited by a lecturer from the department of English Literature and Language of our university. Secondly, a bilingual teacher translated the Turkish version of the scale back to English. As a next step, a lecturer who had a Ph.D degree in the field of psychology examined the Turkish translation by focusing on its terminology. The final revision of the scale was made by a bilingual English teacher.

The original 30 items were included in the Turkish version of the scale. In order to assess the suitability of the translation, the scale was tested in a pilot study by using a sample of 30 persons. The results showed that the items were clearly understood by the subjects. After establishing the intelligibility of the items, we selected 362 individuals by random sampling from the personnel lists of the personnel department of our university. The major sample of the study was consisted of participants from different positions such as academic and managerial staff. Participants rated the each item by using a 5 point scale ranging from “never” to “very often”. Data was analyzed by using SPSS 11.0 software's multidimensional scaling and reliability options. After establishing the reliability of the Turkish version, the main factors of the job related well-being status of university staff from different positions were analysed by using the AnswerTree package of SPSS. This report will include the results of multidimensional scaling and reliability analyses.

Multidimensional scaling analysis: This is a method for showing the relation between (n) subjects or units, in a (k) dimensional space, regarding to determined distances and (p) variables. The general purpose of this analysis is to state the real construction of the subjects by using the possible minimal dimension and distances. The difference between , the real subject with (p) dimension and the estimated subject with (k) dimension gives the stress value. It is desired that the stress value to be closer to 0 (Everitt, B.; Dunn, G.;1992). Two-dimensional option was found to be the most acceptable solution. For the 30 emotional items the stress value found to be 0,07. This shows us that the accordance between real subject and the estimated one is acceptable. The two dimensional figure of analysis is shown below.

Figure: 1- Multidimensional Scaling Analysis for the JAWS variables

Four groupings are shown in the Figure 1. These were evaluated with regard to the model produced by the the original study and it was seen that all items were in their 'correct' places in terms of the discrimination of positive-negative emotions. Regarding the four groupings, 20 items out of 30 appeared in their predefined places. Thus, it was decided to exclude ten items that were not matched the model. By doing so, it was aimed to provide a basis for comparisons that could be made between different cultural groups. Distribution of The selected items in four groups are presented in Table 1.

Table: 1- Turkish Translations of Selected Items

Reliability Analysis: Independent from the method of the study, reliability of the data has great importance. In a scaling instrument, reliability means the existence of consistency between all items and finally the similarity of all items in measuring the handled subject. For reliability analysis the inner consistency and quality of every item should be assessed. The basic hypotheses of reliability analysis are: every item should be a linear compound of total score, the scale could be an addable, and there should be no negative correlation among items. If a measuring error does not exist, the reliability coefficient would be found as one. If it is found as zero that means there is a measuring error. The most popular reliability measuring method is Cronbach Alpha and it measures the inner consistency of variables which take place in a scale. If all values of a variable were divided with the standard deviation standardized alpha can be measured.

Table 2 shows the reliability results of English and 20-item Turkish version of JAWS. The Turkish version showed quite high reliability coefficients (0.82-0.94 ). We also observed some other similarities between the findings of US and Turkish studies. The means of the positive totals were higher than negative totals in both samples. In addition, the mean scores of four subtypes appeared as following the same order in both studies: HPLA >HPHA > LPLA >LPHA.We should note that as the English and Turkish versions included different numbers of items, a comparison using the mean scores would not produce meaningful information.

 Table 2. Mean, Standart Deviations, and Cronbach Alpha Coefficients of the Scores of USA and Turkish Samples onTotal, Negative Total, Positive Total, and Four Subtypes

 Theoretical oppositions/similarities as they were specified in the model of Katwyk et al. (2000) would provide rich information about the compatibility of the two versions. In order to see if they were present in our data, we calculated correlations between the scores of total JAWS, HPHA, HPLA, LPHA, and LPLA . As it is seen in Table 3, all correlation coefficients were found in expected directions.

Table: 3- Correlations Among Total JAWS and Four Subtypes Scores^a

^a Correlation coefficients above the diagonal belong to US sample, below the diagonal belong to Turkish sample.

HPHA: High pleasure high arousal (cheerful, elated, ecstatic, enthusiastic, inspired)

HPLA: High pleasure low arousal (satisfied, content, at ease, proud, pleased)

LPHA: Low pleasure high arousal (disgusted, frightened, furious, frustrated, intimidated)

LPLA: Low pleasure low arousal (fatigued, depressed, bored, confused, miserable)

* p < .05 ** p < .01 ***p < .001

Answer Tree: Answer Tree method is used widely to estimate the potential items of a group, for risk management, establishing rules for foreseeing the prospective events, designing the parametric models etc. Answer Tree is used also for: selecting among many variables and data mass the significant, definition of the relations of some specific sub groups, transforming the continuous variables into discontinuous forms (Akpınar). SPSS AnswerTree 3.1 uses three different techniques like CHAID, Exhaustive CHAID, C&RT and QUEST. Among the first three techniques the dependent variable is continuous, categorized and ranking . In the last one it is ranking . We used the C&RT technique of Breiman, Olshen and Stone. With this technique, in every step the group will be divided into more homogenous two sub groups. The division for categorized variables done by gini and towing index calculations and for continuous variables by small squares equation.

Finally, age and work tenure as continuous variables and gender, marital status, education and performing job as categorized independent variables were analyzed. Continuous dependent variable was total score. Results are shown in Figure 2.

We found the age as the most significant variable. Regarding to this variable two homogenous sub-groups with the cut-off point of 38.5 age were realized. Participants above this age had a mean of 3.91, which was higher than the other sub-group (3.51) If it is taken into account that the total scores could be effected mostly by the participants’ personal characteristics and general well-being, age could be expected as the first distinctive factor. Another study showed that the neuroticism level is diminishing with age ( McCrae et. al., 2000). Together with this finding the arousal in general well-being status with increasing age seems to be a consistent result. First information regarding to work came out at the second level. The separator among the participants who were 38.5 years of age or older, were the work tenure. Participants with 7,5 years or more work tenure had a positive emotion mean of 3.99 which was higher than the other group( 3.69) with work tenure lower than 7.5 years. In Turkish academic environment the arise in work tenure leads to carrier development therefore this separation can be seen as meaningful. This level is also the last one for the participants in the 38.5 age and over group. On the second level among the 38.5 age younger group the separator variable was also the work tenure again. Cut-off point of work tenure was 1,5 years. Mean total score of the group with work tenure lower than 1,5 years was found higher (3.71) than the other one. This can be explained by the high positive emotions of the beginners. On the third level the separator variable is coming from the participants with work tenure more than 1.5 years. The separator was found as age which divided the group into two homogenous

Figure:2- Answer Tree for the Total Score

 sub-groups. The mean of the total score for the participants aged 28.5 and over was higher (3.54) than the younger group (3.34). This could be explained again with the carrier development. The last variable which was found on the fourth level was the marital status. This variable divided the group aged 28.5 or younger into two homogenous sub-groups. The mean score of the single participants (3.43) was found to be higher than the married or divorced ( 3.04) In general it is accepted that marriage should brought individual happiness but among university staff this is not true. Because having a family, taking some responsibilities can be often a barrier on the way of academic carrier and family life can be in conflict with academic life.

As a result we can say that the Turkish version of JAWS is reliable and valid. Validation of total positive emotional scores of a very heterogeneous group, according to different variables like age, marital status, and work tenure can be seen as a positive sign of the reliability. Further studies regarding to stress measurement of the university staff are needed for the additional reliability confirmation.

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