Identifying Validity Information

With this exercise you’ll review and identify basic validity information as presented in published reports.

Study by Menon 2001

Menon’s study can be found here:

http://www.bwgriffin.com/gsu/courses/edur7130/readings/Menon_2001.pdf

Read the first paragraph of page 159, then quickly scan the rest of 159, 160, and 161. Read the two paragraphs on page 161 entitled “Measuring Empowerment.” Once you finish that, review page 162.

1. What type of validity is Menon addressing on these pages?

 Empirical Validity: Reviewing Menon’s Theoretical Predictions

Several questions are presented below, but first one must review Menon’s theoretical predictions and expectations to understand the logic for the examples of empirical validity provided by Menon.

-----Theoretical Predictions-----

Menon defines empowerment as having three dimensions: perceived control, perceived competence, and goal internalization.

Perceived control = reflects the employee’s perceived ability to influence his or her work, influence decisions, and also reflects the level of authority an employee has on his/her job.

Q: How would you expect perceived control to correlate with a measure of helplessness?

A: The more control one has, the lower should be one’s feelings of helplessness, so these two variables should correlate negatively.

Perceived competence = indicative of one’s capability to do one’s job well, reflects one’s level of skills and abilities as related to job performance, and also a measure of one’s competence to work effectively.

Q: If we had an external measure of competence, that is, a separate measure of competence that is different from Menon’s measure, what relationship would you expect between scores from Menon’s measure of competence and the second measure of competence?

A: If both scales/questionnaires are designed to measure the same variable/construct, then the two should produce scores that show a positive correlation (a positive relationship) since they should be measuring the same construct similarly.

Goal internalization = it is job buy-in; it occurs when an employee is inspired by what the organization is trying to achieve; inspired by the goals of the organization; and enthused by working toward the organization’s objectives.

Q: Suppose we had a second instrument that measured job meaning for people, that is, it measured the correspondence between the job and individual beliefs and attitudes – how well one has adopted the beliefs and attitudes of the organization. What type of correlation should we expect between Menon’s goal internalization measure and this second measure of job meaning?

A: As above, if one has two different scales designed to measure the same construct (variable), the the two scales should produce scores that demonstrate a positive correlation.

----- Questions about Perceived Control -----

Now go to page 168 of Menon’s article and study Table 3 for a few moments. Note that correlations are presented in Table 3.

2. Which of Menon’s three measures correlated most strongly with helplessness and what was this correlation?

3. Did we predict this?

4. What type of validity evidence is this for perceived control?

----- Questions about Perceived Competence -----

5. Which of the external measures correlated most strongly with perceived competence?

6. What type of validity evidence would this be?

----- Questions about Goal Internalization -----

7. The external measure of job meaning (reported just as “Meaning” in Table 3), which was considered above, correlates most strongly with which of Menon’s measures?

8. What type of validity evidence does this appear to represent?