engleski

Does Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students function differently in transitional countries?

In line with positive psychology movement in W/O psychology, there has been a shift towards exploring the construct of work engagement, the opposite of the much researched burnout construct. Work engagement is usually described by three persistent and pervasive states one experiences while working: vigour (high levels of energy and mental resilience), dedication (feelings of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and challenge), and absorption (being fully concentrated during work, and feeling that time passes by quickly ; Schauffeli et al., 2002). Besides the working population, work engagement has also been investigated on student populations, usually through the use of student version of Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-S). Our goal in this study was to check if the structure and predictive validity of UWES-S replicates in transitional countries, characterised by different educational system and labor market than Western countries. In line with our goal, we collected large samples of students from Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, both at the beginning of the semester (N = 422 - 648) and during the exam period (N = 272 - 653). Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) showed that, unlike in the original context, scores on UWES-S were best described by two factors (CFI = .90, RMSEA = .10). One consisted of items reflecting experiences of vigour and absorption, and the other of items reflecting the experience of dedication. Regarding predictive validity, we showed that across all countries and both times of measurement, the vigor/absorption subscale scores predicted GPA better than dedication subscale scores (r = .33 - .36 at the beginning of the semester and .24 - .33 during exam period, all p < .01), while both correlated equally high with fewer number of psychophysical symptoms (r = .32 - .38 at the beginning of the semester and .23 - .43 during exam period, all p < .01). Our findings indicate that, though somewhat different than the factor structure of the original instrument, UWES-S items in our sample(s) grouped in a meaningful way. In the three transitional countries, student engagement is best captured by two factors, with dedication factor reflecting a cognitive aspect, while vigor/absorption factor reflecting affective aspect of engagement. Based on the correlation with the criteria, it seems that in this context the affective aspect is somewhat better at predicting student success at their studies, while both cognitive and affective aspects of engagement seem to be equally important predictors of psychophysical health.

work engagement ; students ; UWES-S ; transitional countries

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