Occupant stimulus response workplace productivity and the vexed question of measurement

Abstract

Article information:To cite this document: Brian Purdey, (2013),"Occupant stimulus response workplace productivity and the vexed question of measurement", Facilities, Vol. 31 Iss 11/12 pp. 505 -520 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper to develop a better understanding of the behavioural challenges in workplace performance evaluation and how the issues raised regarding validity and reliability of Likert scales could be addressed in future occupant surveys. Design/methodology/approach -A review of the literature was conducted to identify some of the more important issues in occupant evaluations of built environment performance. Disparate fields of research were particularly given the changing nature of the workplace and work itself. The appropriateness of the Likert scale was then examined in some depth, with evaluation data presented by this method analysed to gauge the extent of error in reporting self-assessed or perceived workplace productivity. Findings -The review points to significant challenges in obtaining valid and reliable information in occupant self-evaluations of workplace performance using linear Likert scales. When the occupant rating is negative, arithmetic means were found to be significantly lower than geometric means. The converse was found to be true for positive ratings. Magnitude estimation using a free modulus approach has been shown to be potentially free of bias and scale limitations Research limitations/implications -The survey data available for analysis were limited, but the implications of the findings for the credibility of workplace performance evaluation are significant given the widespread use of linear Likert scales. Researchers are encouraged to pursue the questions raised and test the propositions further. Practical implications -With modern work becoming more complex, information rich, mobile and team oriented, more sophisticated occupant performance evaluation tools and methods are needed to replace simplistic self-assessment questionnaires. Originality/value -This paper addresses the paucity of research into the validity and reliability of self-assessed measures for workplace productivity. It integra...

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“…As postulated by Bentler and Chou (1987) when a variable has four or more categories the results of statistical analysis are not significantly distorted. Yet use of standard deviation for Likert-scale data is not recommended and applying parametric statistical methods depends on establishing the normality of the data (Purdey, 2013). That is, parametric methods have underlying assumptions about normality and are permissible for use as long as variables meet the requirements about the shape of the distribution.…”

“…The results of conducting the test for available data showed that all the variables in the dataset follow a non-normal distribution with the statistic for Shapiro-Wilk test ranging from 706 to 852 ( . This indicated that distributions of variables were not normal, thus use of parametric tests would culminate in distorted and misleading results (Ghasemi and Zahediasl, 2012;Purdey, 2013). Therefore, nonparamedic methods, which have no assumption regarding the distribution of data were utilised.…”

Evidence-Based Survey Design: The Use of a Midpoint on the Likert Scale

“…Due to its simplicity and popularity, the traditional Likert scale expanded into many variations of Likert‐type scales. These are commonly used in survey instruments designed for: measuring employee performance in the workplace (Purdey, ), communications research (Ryan, ), marketing research (Garland, ), political‐opinion research (Raaijmakers, van Hoof, ’t Hart, Verbogt, & Vollebergh, ), and psychometric research (Kulas & Stachowski, ). Its popularity, however, does not necessarily equate to its validity as a data collection method (Johns, ).…”

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“…Debido a su simplicidad y popularidad, la escala Likert tradicional se expandió en muchas variaciones de escalas tipo Likert. Estos se usan comúnmente en instrumentos de encuestas diseñados para: medir el desempeño de los empleados en el lugar de trabajo (Purdey, 2013), investigación de mercado (Garland, 1991), e investigación psicométrica (Kulas & Stachowski, 2013).…”