Exploring the Impact of Certification Activity, Years of Laboratory Experience, Highest Degree Held, Occupational Commitment, and Job Loss Insecurity on Intent to Leave Occupation for Medical Technologists

Journal of Allied Health, Winter 2006 by Blau, Gary, Daymont, Tom, Hochner, Art, Koziara, Karen, Et al

Total years worked in the laboratory was measured in 2000 by asking respondents to fill in the number of years each had worked in the laboratory.

Highest degree held was measured in 2000 by asking respondents to check which box was appropriate, where 1 = baccalaureate degree, 2 = master's degree, 3 = doctorate, and 4 = other (with a blank space for the respondent to then write in). Baccalaureate degree was the predominant response category used (89%), with all other postbaccalaureate degrees combined having a low base rate in 2000 (11%). Again, to fully utilize all the data for correlation-based analyses, this variable was recoded such that 1 = baccalaureate degree and 2 = master's degree, doctorate, or other.

Occupational commitment was measured using 24 items in 2000. The six items each measuring affective and normative occupational commitment were adapted from Meyer et al.7 Beyond changing the occupational referent from "nursing" to "medical technology," the main change made to items was to word them all positively. A sample affective occupational commitment item is "1 like being a medical technologist." A sample normative commitment item is "I feel an obligation to remain in medical technology." The eight accumulated costs items and four limited alternatives items were adapted from the 12-item occupational entrenchment scale by Carson et al.18 The original referent used by Carson et al.18 (i.e., "work/career field") was changed to "medical technology." Accumulated costs were measured by adding together the four emotional costs items and the four occupational investment items. Sample items are "I have too much time invested in medical technology to change occupations" (occupational investment) and "there would be a great emotional price involved, e.g., disrupted interpersonal relationships, in changing occupations" (emotional costs). Blau8 found support for collapsing these two scales into the larger "accumulated costs" scale across multiple samples.

Three of four items for the limited alternatives measure are reverse scored in the original measure by Carson et al.18 The only "straight scored" item had lower factor loadings than the other three reverse-scored items. This suggested keeping the direction of the items the same so as not to confuse the respondent.23 Therefore, all four items for the limited alternatives measure were reverse scored (R): for example, "1 would have many options if I decided to change professions" (R). A four-point response scale was used for these 24 occupational commitment items and all other multi-item scales in this study (unless otherwise indicated) where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, and 4 = strongly agree. For all multi-item measures, items were averaged to create a scale score.

Job loss insecurity was measured in 2001 using seven items. These seven items focused on being permanently laid off for different reasons (restructuring, reduced staff), which is consistent with Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt.10 These items were used previously by Blau and Ward-Cook24 and are partially based on previous work by Ashford et al.15 Sample items are "I am concerned that I may lose my job next year" and "I am concerned that my job will be negatively affected by my institution's downsizing in the next 3 years." Given the current dynamic nature of the health care industry,6 respondents were asked to use time frames of "next year" and in the "next 3 years" when answering items. Previous research25 has used projected time ranges in assessing job insecurity perceptions.