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Practical Information
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Instrument Name:
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Work Environmental Scale (WES)
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Instrument Description:
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WES assesses how people perceive the social environments such as productivity, and employee satisfaction and expectation, in their work setting. (Ref: 1-2) There are 10 subscales under 3 dimensions in 3 forms: Involvement, Peer Cohesion, Supervisor Support (Relationship Dimensions), Autonomy, Task Orientation, Work Pressure (Personal Growth Dimensions), Clarity, Control, Innovation, and Physical Comfort (System Maintenance and System Change Dimensions) in the Real Form (Form R), the Ideal Form (Form I), and the Expectations Form (Form E). (Ref: 1)
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Price:
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WES Non-Prepaid Review Kit ($72.00); WES Manual ($48.40)
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Administration Time:
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No information found.
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Publication Year:
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1974
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Item Readability:
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Flesch-Kincaid reading grade is 6.8 for the overall, 7.0 for the instructions, and 7.1 for the items.
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Scale Format:
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90-item, True/False scale
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Administration Technique:
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Self-administrated questionnaire; lead pencils with erasers should be supplied.
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Scoring and Interpretation:
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Use the template provided; the raw score (R/S) in each subscale is calculated with the number of marked items that the template points out. Individual raw scores or grouped average scores in subscales can be converted to standard scores (S/S) with the conversion table. Scores can be compared among employees and managers in the same work setting and to another work setting. (Ref: 1)
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Forms:
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The Real Form (Form R), the Ideal Form (Form I), and the Expectation Form (Form E) are available. However, only Form R is available for publication; Form I and Form E will be provided on request. (Ref: 1) 40-item short form was also reported. (Ref: 2)
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Research Contacts
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Instrument Developers:
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Rudolf H. Moos and Paul M. Insel
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Instrument Development Location:
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Stanford University
Social Ecology Laboratory
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Palo Alto, California
Purchasing: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. (http://www.cpp-db.com) or Career/LifeSkills Resources Inc. (http://www.career-lifeskills.com/). WES Non-prepaid Review Kit and WES Manual at the Consulting Psychologist Press, Inc. cost is $72.00 and $48.40, respectively.
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Instrument Developer Email:
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No information found.
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Instrument Developer Website:
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www.chce.research.med.va.gov/PI_Moos_R.htm
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Annotated Bibliography
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1. Moos, RH. A social climate scale: Work environmental scale manual. 1981. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc.
Purpose: Revised manual with more psychometric information than the original.
Sample: 624 employees and managers in 44 work groups including municipal employees, maintenance workers, and drivers. (Ref: 1)
Methods: The 200-item Form A and the 138-item Form B were pretested. After psychometric criteria were applied, the 90-item, 10 subscale Form R was developed.
Implications: There were several differences found between the general work group and the health-care work group. A copy of Form R is appended.
2. Abraham IL, Foley TS. The work environment scale and the ward atmosphere scale (short forms): psychometric data. Percept Mot Skills 1984 Feb;58(1):319-22. [PMID: 6718198]
Purpose: Psychometric evaluation for the short forms of WES (40 items) and Word Atmosphere Scale.
Sample: 153 nursing students at the University of Michigan whose ages ranged from 19 to 40 years (mean = 22.02, median = 21 SD = 3.95).
Methods: The original WES is true/false format; however, 4-point Likert scale was adopted in this study.
Implications: The authors note that while the original form of the WES has higher reliability, the short form may prefereable from a practical standpoint.
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top
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Factors and Norms
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Factor Analysis Work:
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No information found.
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Normative Information Availability:
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The normative data for Form R was generated from 1442 employees in general work group and 1607 employees in health care work groups. Means and standard deviations were reported as follows (Ref: 1):
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General Work Group
Mean (±SD)
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Health Care Work Group
Mean (±SD)
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| Involvement
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5.95 (±1.41)
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5.56 (±1.54)
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| Peer Cohesion
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5.70 (±1.15)
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5.22 (±1.40)
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| Supervisor Support
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5.68 (±1.38)
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4.99 (±1.40)
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| Autonomy
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5.54 (±1.22)
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4.98 (±1.46)
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| Task Orientation
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5.90 (±1.29)
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5.63 (±1.31)
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| Work Pressure
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4.40 (±1.38)
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4.87 (±1.57)
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| Clarity
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5.60 (±1.29)
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4.44 (±1.41)
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| Control
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4.88 (±1.33)
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5.43 (±1.42)
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| Innovation
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4.42 (±1.54)
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4.37 (±1.82)
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| Physical Comfort
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4.89 (±1.35)
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3.72 (±1.28)
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Reliability Evidence
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Test-retest:
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1-month test-retest reliabilities for 10 subscales in the Form R are in the range from 0.69 to 0.83 (N = 75). 12-month stabilities are reported from 0.51 to 0.63 (N = 254). (Ref: 1)
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Inter-rater:
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No information found.
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Internal Consistency:
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Form R: Internal consistencies for 10 subscales are in the range from 0.69 to 0.86 (N = 1045). (Ref: 1) An overall alpha coefficient for the 40-item short form was reported as 0.94, and coefficients for the 3 dimensions were ranged from 0.75 to 0.88. For the subscales, the coefficients were reported as in the range from 0.04 to 0.80, which all coefficients were above 0.40 but “work pressure” reported as 0.04. (Ref: 2)
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Alternate Forms:
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No information found.
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Validity Evidence
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Construct/ Convergent/ Discriminant:
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No information found.
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Criterion-related/ Concurrent/ Predictive:
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No information found.
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Content:
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No information found.
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Responsiveness Evidence:
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No information found.
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Scale Application in VA Populations:
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Yes. Administrative and staff nurses at a VAMC were included in the samples. (Ref: 1)
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Scale Application in non-VA Populations:
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Yes. (Ref: 1-2)
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Comments
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The developers of the WES report no theoretical model from which their scale was developed. They did undertake structured-interviews with employees in generating the initial item pool. The WES appears comprehensive in its coverage of workplace social environment. Though published in 1974, the wording of the WES items remains relevant. A nice feature of this measure is the availability of norms based on 2 large samples. For researchers of the VA work-environment, the fact that the health-care work group normative sample included administrative and staff nurses from a Veterans Administration medical center is also a plus.
Abraham and Foley (Ref: 2) who assessed a shorter, Likert-type version of the scale conclude that the original WES may be preferable because of the higher inter-item consistency estimates they obtained in their study.
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