The Quality of Life at Work in Italian Universities: Developing a Tool to Assess Challenges and Resources of Academic Work

Although in the past, research on quality of life at work in academia appeared surprisingly rare in many countries, and in some cases nearly absent, the attention of the researchers on this topic has grown during the last decades. Academic work role has changed according to the recent technology advancements and also due to the enlargement on the work role’s duties, triggering psycho-social work risks that can be deleterious for the academic’s health and wellbeing. With the aim to contribute to this emerging issue, a team called QoL@Work and 140 formed by W/O psychologists from 20 Italian universities developed a tool for the assessment of psychosocial risks as well as workers health and wellbeing in universities. Building from the Job Demands-Resources model and from a deep and systematic literature review on the topic of health and wellbeing in the academic work, we discussed thoroughly on the possible demands and resources characterizing the academic’s role and developed a core model which should cover the most relevant antecedents, mediators/moderators and outcomes for depicting and evaluating university researchers/teachers’ health, wellbeing, and working conditions. According to this theoretical framework and in line with the current literature, different scales was included in the developed tool. In order to finalize the validation of the tool, a confirmative study was conducted on a sample of up to 2250 researchers/teachers from universities of North, Centre and South Italy. The sample was randomly splitted into two subsamples, a calibration and a validation one. To validate the internal factorial structure of the scales included in the tool, we performed Structural Equation Modeling through Confirmative Factorial Analysis. Furthermore, the present study aimed to test reliability of the measures through McDonald’s Omega and discriminant and convergent validity through heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations and cross-loadings. Finally, measurement invariance was assessed, considering a group of core variables, of the core model of the tool. Factorial analysis and reliability check reported satisfying and promising evidence of the robustness of the tool. Fit indices revealed good internal and divergent consistence of the scales. Measurement invariance across gender and role was investigated. The current study is cross-sectional and the measures are self-reported. Future longitudinal study could examine changes and statistical relationships over time. Results indicated that the proposed tool is reliable and could be used for depicting university researchers/teachers’ health, wellbeing, and working conditions. Moreover, useful insights for implementing organizational interventions could also be obtained. The tool, proposed by a team of W/O psychologists from 20 Italian universities, aims to offer the academic community with a scientifically reliable diagnostic tool, able to suggest also useful insights for the improvement of working conditions and wellbeing.