Stressors and Adverse Outcomes for Female Construction Workers

1
Stressors and Adverse Outcomes for Female
Construction Workers

• Linda M. Goldenhar, Naomi G. Swanson, Joseph J.
  Hurrell, Jr., Avima Ruder, and James Deddens
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and
  Health
• Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (1998)

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Why study female construction workers?

• Nontraditional occupation for women
• 140,000 women in construction industry, 2 (1995)
• Job stressors with disproportionate impact on
  women
• Lack of skills training
• Skill underutilization
• Additional job stressors associated with
  job-gender context such as sexual harassment and
  gender discrimination

3
Outcomes of stressors

• 3 types
• Psychological affect
• Physiological headaches, insomnia, and nausea
• Job satisfaction
• All leading to injury or illness

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Method

• Single sample
• Cross-sectional survey design
• Exploratory, descriptive findings
• 211 participants
• Phone surveys

5
Finding

• Sexual harassment and gender discrimination
• only IV significantly related to all outcomes
• Nausea
• Headaches
• Insomnia
• Psychological symptoms
• Job satisfaction

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Questions

• 1. The study used the NIOSH Management Commitment
  Scale and reported the reliability coefficient as
  .86 (Cronbach alpha). How do you find the
  reliability of a survey? How do you know if the
  reliability coefficient is good?

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Questions

• 2. For the question how satisfied are you with
  your job, the researchers dichotomized the
  results using a median split. Does dichotomizing
  your results from a multi-point scale lower your
  chance of finding an effect?

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Questions

• 3. The researchers first conducted exploratory
  factor analyses on all of the items. How do you
  run exploratory factor analyses?
• 4. What are zero-order correlations (see Table
  4 and 5)?