Overall job satisfaction: How good are single-item measures?

1997/04/01 by John P. Wanous, Arnon E. Reichers, Michael J. Hudy · 3,249 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Health Professions · Mathematics · Psychology · #Correlation #Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout #Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior #Job satisfaction #Mathematics #Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction #Psychology #Reliability (semiconductor) #Scale (ratio) #Social psychology #Statistics

paper · doi:10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.247

published in Journal of Applied Psychology 82(2), 247-252 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 1997/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

A meta-analysis of single-item measures of overall job satisfaction (28 correlations from 17 studies with 7,682 people) found an average uncorrected correlation of .63 (SD = .09) with scale measures of overall job satisfaction. The overall mean correlation (corrected only for reliability) is .67 (SD = .08), and it is moderated by the type of measurement scale used. The mean corrected correlation for the best group of scale measures (8 correlations, 1,735 people) is .72 (SD = .05). The correction for attenuation formula was used to estimate the minimum level of reliability for a single-item measure. These estimates range from .45 to .69, depending on the assumptions made.

Citations

• Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.

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