Not All Academics Are Alike: First Validation of the Academics' Quality of Life at Work Scale (AQoLW)

Abstract

Background: Relating to the macro-level changes and the increasing complexity of the academic system, a growing number of studies began to investigate the perceived working context impact on well-being and job satisfaction of academics. A unique duality characterizes this context: academics cannot be longer defined as stress-free, but at the same time they are still satisfied and engaged in their work. There is a need to evaluate the academic environment not only in terms of stressor and strain, but also in terms of which experiences are sources of fulfillment. The study aimed to explore psychometric properties of a new instrument (AQoLW) for assessing context-specific features of the academic work and environment that characterized academics' quality of life at work.Method: A 24 item scale was deployed to academics (full, associate, and assistant professors) in a public university in the north of Italy. Items were defined to represent the main academic activities in order to measure if respondents perceived each of it as a challenging or a hindrance demand. The scale was administered online to 1,012 academics, 443 females (48.7%), mean aged 51.1 years (SD = 8.2). In order to test three theoretical models underling AQoLW, a training sample was randomly extracted (242 participants) and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A validation sample with the remaining 668 participants was used to test the measurement invariance by role of the best model emerging from the training sample.Results: Model fit demonstrate the goodness of a latent structure composed by five intercorrelated factors (CFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.07). Cronbach α of the five subscales was good, ranging from 0.76 to 0.88. The scale overtakes configural invariance, but not strong invariance by role.Conclusions: The scale is able to intercept the mainly dimensions of the academic work that contribute to the quality of life of academics' staff, namely: research and public engagement, didactic work and relationships with students, career development and competition, ordinary obligations, and fund raising. AQoLW is the first tool to evaluate the academic work and its environment, identifying which activities are stressful demands and which are engaging, and promote scholars' satisfaction.

The Unbearable Lightness of the Academic Work: The Positive and Negative Sides of Heavy Work Investment in a Sample of Italian University Professors and Researchers

“…On this basis, healthy universities programs have recently been enhanced in Northern Europe and the UK, aimed at "improving health among students and staff, leading to institutional and societal productivity and sustainability" [1]. In accordance with the psychology of sustainability that aims to improve the quality of life [2] and create positive work environments specifically from the organizational positive psychology perspective [3], the healthy universities perspective promotes the creation of an organizational culture that enhances the "wellbeing and sustainability of its community and enables people to achieve their full potential" [4] and defines universities as communities "in which people can thrive and flourish" [5][6][7].…”

“…Academic work is, thus, changing, marked by increasing workloads and work hours, growing cuts in research funding, inadequate rewards, job insecurity, the demand for high-quality teaching of large classes, and work-family conflict [7,[11][12][13]. Moreover, competitiveness, publication pressures and excessive paperwork (increasing the already intense pressure of the publish or perish situation) strain faculty.…”

“…The complexity of the psychosocial environment described above is compounded by the non-univocal interpretation by academic workers of what challenging demands might be and what might be the sources of stress or frustration among the different activities that characterize their job [7]. In the light of the job demand-resources (JD-R) [22,23] model, it is therefore crucial to understand which are the core job resources and demands of university professors [1] that can lead, on the one hand, to motivational processes and, on the other hand, to health-impairment processes that reduce and prevent psychological diseases and strengthen positive outcomes to build a sustainable and healthy community.…”

“…Informed by the JD-R model and engagement/workaholism research, the aim of this study is to contribute to the current literature on work sustainability pertaining to academic staff by examining the direct and indirect associations of faculty burnout, faculty engagement (as outcomes) and work environment characteristics (demand and resources) with the two dimensions of workaholism (as a predictor). Specifically, we considered two core demands that nowadays negatively characterize academic work, namely workload and conflicts with colleagues [7,13], and two major resources related to the traditional values of faculty work, namely meaningfulness of work and reward [18]. The relationships between the working environment, workaholism, work-family conflict and burnout among this group of workers has, until now, received little attention or research.…”

Board 102: Development of the Persistence of Engineers in the Academy Survey (PEAS)

“…Meaningful comparisons of subjective constructs between groups requires that scale items and latent traits of individuals should remain independent of group membership, such as a demographic identity [56] [57]. Measurement invariance, (MI), also known as measurement equivalence, is a condition where a test or scale is found to measure the same construct in the same way across different groups [58].…”