The validation of two burnout measures in the South African earthmoving equipment industry / A.M. le Roux

The objectives of this study were to validate the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey(MBI-GS) and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), to determine the construct equivalenceand item bias of these instruments for employees in an earthmoving equipment industry in South&ca of different language groups, to determine the correlation between the MBI-GS and theOLBI, and to investigate the relationship between burnout and various demographiccharacteristics. A random sample of 326 employees in an earthmoving equipment industry ofeight provinces in South Africa was taken. The MBI-GS, the OLBI and a biographicalquestionnaire were used as measuring instruments. Cronbach alpha coefficients, inter-itemcorrelation coefficients, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients and exploratory factoranalysis were used to analyse the dataThe results showed that three factors of the MBI-GS and two factors of the OLBI exist fordifferent language groups. Exploratory factor analysis with target rotations confirmed theconstruct equivalence of the three factors of the MBI-GS and the two factors for the OLBI fordifferent language groups. No evidence was found for uniform or non-uniform bias of the itemsof the MBI-GS or the OLBI for different language groups. Results indicated that no differenceswith respect to levels of burnout exist between various demographic characteristics.Recommendations were made for further research.