Development and Validation of The Life-Career Adaptability Scale of employees

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop and validate the life-career adaptability scale of modern employees who have to cope with rapid changes in the working environment due to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the Pandemic Era. Research 1, an open-ended questionnaire was conducted to 117 employees who were uniformly sampled by gender, age group, and company size, and the scale was developed with 100 items of 13 factors. Research 2, a preliminary survey was conducted on 321 employees using the scale. The result of exploratory factor analysis(EFA), 79 items of 10 factors were extracted. Research 3, the data of 723 employees were divided into two groups to verify the validity of the compositional concept of the Life-Career Adaptability. In order to examine whether the scale and its sub-factors properly assess the degree of life-career adaptability of employees, Group 1 conducted an EFA, Group 2 conducted a confirmatory factor analysis(CFA). Result of the EFA, 40 items of 7 factors were extracted. Seven factors consist of Industrial Environment Change Awareness, Work Environment Change Awareness, Life-Career Plan, Future Career Exploration, Future Career Preparation, Current Career Adapting and Networking. CFA using structural equation modeling, turned out that it met the modeling fit criteria. These life-career adaptability factors were high rate of positive correlation with the Career Management Behavior, supporting convergence validity, and were significantly related to criteria such as Life Satisfaction, Hope, Adaptive Performance, and Career Commitment, confirming criterion-related validity of the scale. Finally, implications, limitations, and directions for future research discussed.