Identification and analyses of job difficulty dimensions An empirical study

Abstract

A study was conducted to identify what job incumbent's interpret as dimensions of job difficulty. In this study job difficulty is defined as a job activity that requires significant physical and/or mental effort to complete. First, interviews, card sorting, and categorization procedures were used with randomly selected staff nurses in three hospitals to develop an occupation specific job difficulty composite scale. The scale was then administered to 130 medical-surgical staff nurses. Factor analysis revealed three job difficulty dimensions for nurses—overload, conflict, head nurse practices, Second, ANOVA and stepwise multiple regression were used to examine the relationships between the factor analytically derived dimensions and satisfaction, commitment, job tension, and performance ratings. It was determined that the various dimensions were differentially related to the various outcome measures.