The Job Demands Scale for Hearing-Impaired Employees: Development and preliminary analysis of internal validity

Abstract

Few work participation scales have been normed on employees with hearing impairment. This creates an employment disparity against them. We developed a 57 item Job Demands for Hearing Impaired Employees (JDHIE) scale, providing preliminarily internal validity evidence. Respondents were 85 South African adults with hearing impairment from a variety of occupational settings (female = 45.9%; deaf = 42.4%). Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) findings yielded a three-factor scale for communication, environmental, and time demands. The reliability of scores from the communication, environmental and time demands were high, providing the preliminarily evidence for further validation studies of this instrument.