. Maryam Amidi Mazaheri; . Alireza Hidarnia; . Fazlollah Ghofranipour
Volume 2, Issue 3 , August 2012, , Pages 1-4
Abstract
Background: Effective safety education can prevent many occupational accidents. To educatethe public about safety effectively, determinants of safe behavior must be addressed. Personalityconstructs ...
Read More
Background: Effective safety education can prevent many occupational accidents. To educatethe public about safety effectively, determinants of safe behavior must be addressed. Personalityconstructs are among the most important determinants of safe behavior. One of the personalityconstructs that has been studied recently in relation to accidents is locus of control. The mainaim of this study was designing, validating, and determining the reliability of safety locus ofcontrol scale. Materials and Methods: This study was a descriptive, cross‑sectional study. The“forward–backward” procedure was applied to translate safety locus of control scale (Jonesand Becker 1985) from English to Persian. To determine the scientific validity of the scale , facevalidity and content validity by expert judgments were used. Internal consistency was determinedusing Cronbach’s α‑coefficient. Questionnaires were distributed to a group of 400 workers fromdifferent parts of Isfahan Steel Company. Finally, 317 workers completed the questionnaires.Exploratory factor analysis was performed with software SPSS13, and confirmatory factoranalysis was performed with software LISREL8.8. Results: The exploratory factor analysisresults revealed that the three components of the items can be extracted from the scale includinginternal control (4 questions), environmental and equipment control (4 questions), and chanceand fate (4 questions). Confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation resultsindicated that the data had good fit with three‑component scale and fit indices were acceptable:c2∕df=3.96, df=41, c2=120.59, RMSIA=0.080, 95% Confidence Interval=0.64–0.097, CFI=0.96,GFI=0.94, AGFI=0.89. The internal control components and equipment and environmentalcontrol were negatively correlated with each other (P≤0.05, r=−0.41). Also, a weak correlationbetween chance and fate and environmental and equipment control was seen (P≤0.05, r=0.31).Conclusion: In most studies, designing a scale and determining its validity and reliability iscostly and time consuming. The available reliable and valid scale leads to reduced costs andaccelerated research. In other words, duplication will be avoided. The scale obtained in this studycan be used in safety and industrial psychology research.
