The Learning and Development Survey: Further Evaluation of its Psychometric Properties

The current study reports upon further evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Learning and Development Survey. Originally tested on 113 local government employees, the Learning and Development Survey was found to have good reliability, however there was a large proportion of redundant items, with 62 indicators spanning six constructs. These six constructs were: Organisational Opportunities: Learning Climate, Organisational Constraints, Individual Goal Engagement, Individual Goal Selection, Organisational Opportunities: Work Tasks, and Individual Goal Disengagement. In the current study, factor analysis, internal consistency analysis and item reliability analysis were conducted to reduce the total number of items and retain the optimal indicators of the latent factors. The six factors were replicated in the analyses, however the number of items was reduced. Despite a reduction in the number of items, internal consistency remained high, and inter-factor correlations were reduced. A MANOVA was conducted with age and occupation type acting as independent variables, and the factors from the revised Learning and Development serving as the dependent variables. Findings from the MANOVA analysis determined that employees over 45 years of age reported fewer opportunities for learning and development at work than employees aged less than 45 years, especially in blue collar settings. Older workers were also found to be less engaged in learning and development goals than younger workers.