Reliability and validity of the Chinese Version of the Job Content Questionnaire in Taiwanese workers

The reliability and validity of four selected scales-namely, job control, psychological demands, supervisor support, and coworker support-from the Chinese Version of the Job Content Questionnaire (C-JCL) were studied in 551 male and 648 female workers in Taiwan. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for job control, supervisor support, and coworker support were all above .80. Whereas it was .55 for psychological demands, indicating insufficient internal consistency for this subscale. Participants responded to questionnaire items relatively consistently over a 3-month period. Exploratory factor analyses disclosed 4 empirical factors, which corresponded closely with theoretical constructs of the JCL. As predicted by the model, lowest levels of job satisfaction were found in workers in "iso-strain" category (i.e., high demands combined with low control and low social support). These findings indicated that the C-JCL is reliable and valid for assessing psychosocial work conditions among Taiwanese workers, although further improvement is needed for the psychological demands subscale.