Validation of the ultra‐short scale for measuring work engagement among social workers in Chinese contexts

Xuebing Su*, Victor C W WONG*, Chi On Charlie YIP

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    3 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Abstract Based on 683 valid questionnaires collected among a convenience sample of social workers from Hong Kong, Macau and three other cities in mainland China, this study investigated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the three‐item ultra‐short Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (C‐UWES‐3). The results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the discriminant validity of C‐UWES‐3 by differentiating its three items from other five items measuring emotional exhaustion and role ambiguity. The concurrent validity of C‐UWES‐3 was supported by its superior explanatory power to the original nine‐item version of the scale (C‐UWES‐9) in relation to explaining social workers' turnover intention. The convergent validity of C‐UWES‐3 was supported by its correlations vis‐à‐vis factors in the job demands‐resources model such as job demands, job resources, turnover intention and collective psychological ownership. The C‐UWES‐3 showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.81). Overall, the C‐UWES‐3 demonstrates excellent psychometric properties for informing future research.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)241-255
    Number of pages15
    JournalInternational Journal of Social Welfare
    Volume32
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2023

    User-Defined Keywords

    • work engagement
    • job demands
    • job resources
    • social workers
    • turnover intention
    • collective psychological ownership

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Validation of the ultra‐short scale for measuring work engagement among social workers in Chinese contexts'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this