Development and Psychometric Testing of the Mariani Nursing Career Satisfaction Scale ©

Mariani, Bette A.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013: 11:05 AM

Bette A. Mariani, PhD, RN
College of Nursing, Villanova University, Villanova, PA

Learning Objective 1: Discuss the proper method and steps for developing a nursing research instrument.

Learning Objective 2: Examine the process for determining reliability, validity, and factor analysis of a newly developed nursing research instrument.

Purpose: The Mariani Nursing Career Satisfaction Scale © (MNCSS) Research Instrument was developed as an integral part of a research study conducted to explore the influence of mentoring on career satisfaction of registered nurses. A review of the literature revealed no available measure of career satisfaction.

Methods: The MNCSS is a semantic differential of 16-opposite adjectives scales which was developed for participants to rate their feelings about their nursing career. The MNCSS was used in a pilot study and three major studies exploring career satisfaction of registered nurses. Validity, reliability, and exploratory factor analysis (FA) were done to explore the internal structure of the instrument.

Results: The newly developed instrument had a content validity index of .84 and Cronbach alpha internal consistency reliabilities of .93 to .96 across three major studies. Exploratory factor analysis (N = 496) revealed a univocal instrument with one factor that explains 57.8% of the variance in career satisfaction scores.

Conclusion: The MNCSS is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring career satisfaction. Factor analysis of the combined data from three studies yielded one factor that measures the concept of career satisfaction.

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