The development and preliminary testing of a scale to measure the latent and manifest benefits of employment

Abstract

Theorists have argued the importance of the latent and manifest benefits of employment and their relationship with psychological well-being. However, no one scale has been devised that adequately and reliably measures all five latent and one manifest benefit together. The aims of this study were to develop such a scale that satisfies standards for psychometric adequacy, and to present evidence for its validity. In the scale development phase, in-depth interviews with 33 unemployed adults and comments from labour market experts were used in the item generation process. In Study 1, 307 unemployed adults were surveyed, and item analysis, inter-item and item-total correlations and factor analysis were used to reduce the item pool to a 36-item scale, with six homogenous and reliable subscales. In Study 2, 250 unemployed adults were surveyed and the scale was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and tested for associations with psychological distress, neuroticism and various demographic variables. As a result, a reliable and valid 36-item Latent and Manifest Benefits (LAMB) scale was developed. Implications for use in research are discussed.