Initial Validation of a Multilevel Model of Job Satisfaction and Career Intentions Among Collegiate Athletic Trainers

Procedures

After receiving institutional review board approval, we contacted the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) to obtain contact information for ATs self-identified as currently employed in the collegiate or university setting. We were provided a list of 2000 e-mail addresses, 1653 of which were viable (for the others, either the e-mail addresses were inactive or the individuals replied to let us know they did not meet the inclusion criteria). The initial recruitment e-mail, including an overview of the study and a link to the online survey (Qualtrics, Provo, UT), was sent in mid-November 2015. We e-mailed reminders to participants requesting survey completion at 2 and 4 weeks after initial recruitment. The online survey consisted of demographic questions, 7 Likert-scale survey instruments, and open-ended questions. This study was part of a larger investigation¹³ that aimed to examine the work-life interface of collegiate ATs from a multilevel perspective via a mixed-methods study design.

Participants

The inclusion criterion was employment in the collegiate or university setting. Participants were excluded from the study if they were graduate assistant or intern ATs. Athletic trainers employed in the college or university setting were purposefully recruited because of the specific organizational challenges they encountered and because they represented the largest population of NATA members.¹⁴ A total of 299 surveys were completed (18.1% response rate).

Measures

Multilevel Factors

To examine factors at multiple levels, we carefully selected 7 previously validated survey instruments that assessed our preselected factors. Additionally, for a study of athletic trainers, it was important to select survey instruments that measured specific factors at the individual level as opposed to a departmental level. To measure individual-level factors, we selected a work-family conflict scale,¹⁵ a work-family enrichment scale,¹⁶ and a modified version of the Professional Identity and Values Scale.^17,18 To measure organizational factors, we selected a work-time control scale,¹⁹ the Perceived Organizational Family Support scale,²⁰ and the Perceived Supervisory Family Support scale.²⁰ Lastly, to measure sociocultural factors, we selected the shortened Attitudes Toward Women scale.²¹ The original and current Cronbach α statistics for each questionnaire are listed in Table 1. Reliability scores for this study ranged between 0.69 and 0.92. Table 2 provides a summary of each individual Likert-survey instrument, the number of anchors, and its corresponding factor level. Each of the 7 original Likert-scale instruments was included in our survey in its entirety; the survey consisted of 88 questions in total.

Table 1 Reliability Scores of Validated Survey Instruments (α Values)

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Table 2 Variable Level of Measurement and Analysis

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Data Analyses

All statistical analyses were completed using SPSS (version 22; IBM Corp, Armonk, NY). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted using principal component analysis to reduce the number of items in the survey and to rotate the matrix of loadings to obtain oblique factors (direct oblimin rotation) because we expected factors to be correlated. We set a fixed number of factors at 3 based on our theory of individual, organizational, and sociocultural factors. Significant contribution to a factor within the pattern matrix was considered to be r > 0.30, which has been recommended in the athletic training literature.²² All items below a communality extraction of r = 0.40 were removed from the matrix if they did not significantly contribute to a factor. All items that contributed significantly to 1 factor and also contributed significantly to another factor at r > 0.30 were removed from the scale. Items were removed because of a low contribution to 1 factor or significant contributions to multiple factors or because the grouping of items in a specific factor did not result in a clear concept.

Content validity for the model occurred through expert review of the instrument. Conceptual definitions of the 3 factor levels (individual, organizational, and sociocultural) derived from the Dixon and Bruening¹⁰ model were provided to reviewers. The expert reviewers were 2 certified ATs currently employed in the academic collegiate setting and identified as having expertise related to the topics of work-life balance, job satisfaction, and career intentions of ATs. Reviewers independently ranked each item with regard to how well it fit each dimension (individual, organizational, sociocultural) but without knowledge of the subscale for which each individual question was specifically designed. The criteria used to retain each item depended on overall reviewer agreement with regard to the strength of the item as well as our opinions.

Participants

The participants in this study (N = 299) were ATs employed in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I, II, or III or a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics college or university. Respondents identified as male (n = 130, 43.5%) or female (n = 169, 56.5%). All participants were NATA members. They were 34.0 ± 8.0 years old (range = 22–61 years), with 10.0 ± 8 years (range = 0.5–37 years) of experience working as an AT. Participants worked 60 ± 12.0 hours a week (range = 10–100 hours) in season, 46 ± 11.0 hours a week (range = 5–85 hours) during their off-season, and 21.0 ± 16.0 hours a week (range = 0–70 hours) during the summer. Our sample represented diversity in demographic variables as compared with the NATA membership statistics. Most of our participants were single (n = 161, 53.8%) and did not have children (n = 204, 68.2%). All of our participants who reported having children also self-reported being married.

Exploratory Factor Analysis

After the exploratory factor analysis, we reduced the model from 88 to 62 items. Each remaining item was gauged with regard to conceptual agreement by the expert reviewers and us. The model had a Cronbach α of r = 0.92 with a mean interitem correlation of 0.15 (−0.17 to 0.89), indicating that all items uniquely contributed to the overall instrument.

The exploratory factor analysis yielded 3 factors and 62 total items. All final items contributed significantly to 1 factor at a rotated component of r > 0.30. Based on factor analysis, we removed 26 questions from the initial model. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure for the scale was 0.889, with a significant Bartlett test of sphericity ( = 10 308.58, P = .000). The Tukey test for nonadditivity was statistically significant, indicating that the items were nonadditive. The pattern matrix for the model is presented in Table 3. Our proposed model can be found in the Figure.

Table 3 Professional Identity and Values Scale Pattern Matrix^a Continued on Next Page

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Removal of Scale Items

Based on the exploratory factor analysis, all questions from the work-life conflict and work-life enrichment Likert scales were removed from our instrument. The work-life conflict constructs were initially included because of the abundance of literature indicating the influence this construct may have on the work-life interface. Authors of a 2010 meta-analysis²³ examining consequences associated with work-family enrichment suggested that it was positively related to job satisfaction, physical health, mental health, affective commitment, and family satisfaction. The athletic training literature has indicated that work-life conflict negatively affects both job and life satisfaction and is positively related to burnout and intention to leave an organization.³ Although it was initially surprising that we removed all items related to work-life conflict and work-life enrichment, our results may be explained by recent qualitative findings highlighting sociocultural effects on career intentions. Eason¹³ found that women who had traditional sociocultural beliefs, meaning they viewed women as “caretakers” and men as “breadwinners,” and men who had egalitarian beliefs indicated their desire to depart the collegiate clinical setting or the athletic training profession altogether. Conversely, men with traditional views and women with egalitarian views indicated their intention to continue working in the collegiate setting. Because the constructs of work-life conflict and work-life enrichment may understandably be influenced by sociocultural beliefs and further by gender, these items were ultimately removed from the scale.

Explaining the Rationale for a Blended Approach

Although individual factors may affect choices, Allison²⁴ argued that those choices and subsequent actions are shaped and perhaps rooted in organizational policies and environments that engender behaviors that then influence organizational and individual actions. The organizational approach to the work-life interface examines characteristics of the workplace and their relationship to individual behavior. Organizational factors have been studied within an athletic training population and suggested to have effects on the work-life interface of ATs. Salary,⁷ nature of the work,⁷ work overload,²⁵ the organizational climate,²⁵ and staffing²⁵ were identified as strong predictors of intention to leave the profession, whereas job title and National Collegiate Athletic Association division minimally affected job satisfaction and career intentions.⁷ However, these results do not explain the findings of Naugle et al,²⁶ who reported that men described lower levels of burnout despite working more hours than women. Rather, the model depicted in athletic training offers a perspective that organizational and individual factors may be interrelated and influence perceptions of satisfaction, balance, and intentions. The nature of the job (demands, hours worked, etc) may be perceived differently by each individual AT, especially as it fits within the AT's family and personal values. Additionally, the inclusion of sociocultural factors in our model suggests that examination of the work-life interface needs to include sociocultural factors, particularly gender ideology, and an understanding that social norms and values have the ability to influence the interface.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our results may not be generalizable to all athletic training professionals because we sampled only ATs employed in the collegiate setting. The possibility exists that the job demands and patient populations of other job settings may affect job satisfaction and career intentions. Sampling ATs employed in different clinical settings is warranted to obtain more information regarding job satisfaction and career intentions across the profession. Also, the scales we selected to include in this model could have affected the results. Although the scales were carefully selected to represent multiple constructs and multiple levels and guided by prior work conducted by Dixon and Bruening,¹⁰ it was not possible to include all individual, organizational, or sociocultural constructs. For example, we did not include scales related to personality or resiliency, which may influence the overall multilevel nature of an individual's job satisfaction and career intentions. Similarly, confirmatory factor analysis is needed to solidify the scale items and their potential application to the athletic training profession. Our model also needs to be assessed in regard to test-retest reliability.

Future researchers should look beyond the collegiate athletics setting to include secondary schools and other employment settings that have often been described as more structured and family oriented. Future investigators should include scales that focus on the individual factors of the AT, including resiliency and hardiness, which are known to be related to persistence and effective coping strategies. Our data were also collected at one point in time; longitudinal data may offer better insights into the cyclic nature of these constructs, as well as allow researchers to appreciate whether job satisfaction and career intentions are in fact transitory.