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Psychometric Analysis of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment Scale

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Journal of Nursing Measurement, Volume 24, Number 1, 2016

Psychometric Analysis of the Work/Life

Balance Self-Assessment Scale
Suzanne C. Smeltzer, EdD, RN, ANEF, FAAN
Mary Ann Cantrell, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN
Nancy C. Sharts-Hopko, PhD, RN, FAAN
Mary Ann Heverly, PhD
Amanda Jenkinson, RN, MS
Serah Nthenge, RN, MSN
Villanova University College of Nursing, Pennsylvania

Background and Purpose: This study investigated the psychometric properties of the
Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment scale among nurse faculty involved in doctoral
education. Methods: A national random sample of 554 respondents completed the
Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment scale, which addresses 3 factors: work interference
with personal life (WIPL), personal life interference with work (PLIW), and work/personal
life enhancement (WPLE). Results: A principal components analysis with varimax rota-
tion revealed 3 internally consistent aspects of work–life balance, explaining 40.5% of the
variance. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for reliability of the scale were .88 for the total
scale and for the subscales, .93 (WIPL), .85 (PLIW), and .69 (WPLE). Conclusion: The
Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment scale appears to be a reliable and valid instrument to
examine work–life balance among nurse faculty.

Keywords: doctoral nursing faculty; work–life balance; nursing education; PhD nursing
program faculty; DNP nursing program faculty

T
he shortage of doctorally prepared nursing faculty has imposed steep demands
on nurse faculty expected to teach increasing numbers of doctoral students and to
contribute to the development of nursing science through research while mentoring
future nurse scientists and junior faculty colleagues (Brady, 2010; Institute of Medicine,
2010; National Research Council, 2005; Smeltzer et al., 2014a, 2014b). Major factors
contributing to this shortage are the retirement and loss of senior nursing faculty who
teach and mentor students in doctoral nursing programs (Brady, 2010; Smeltzer et al.,
2014a, 2014b), attrition of full-time faculty from schools of nursing with baccalaureate
and graduate programs (Fang & Bednash, 2014), and growth in the number of doctoral
programs in nursing over the past decade (Kirschling, 2014). Further contributing to the
growing shortage of nurse faculty is that those faculty who remain in their academic roles
experience an imbalance in their work and personal lives, creating job dissatisfaction. This
lack of work–life balance and job dissatisfaction may act as catalyst in their intent to leave
academia.

© 2016 Springer Publishing Company 5

http://dx.doi.org/10.1891/1061-3749.24.1.5
Copyright © Springer Publishing Company, LLC
6 Smeltzer et al.

BACKGROUND

The construct of work–life balance began as a “phenomenon” in Great Britain in the

late 1970s to describe the balance between an individual’s work and personal life among
women who were stay-at-home mothers who wanted to return to work (Working Families,
2009). Since then, work–life balance and work–life balance practices have been studied
across disciplines including economics, gender studies, information systems, manage-
ment, social psychology, and sociology (Beauregard & Henry, 2009). Felstead, Jewson,
Phizacklea, and Walters (2002), experts in the field of employment studies, defined work–
life balance as the relationship between institutional and cultural times and spaces of
work and nonwork in societies where income is predominantly generated and distributed
through labor markets (p. 56). Sociologists, Estes and Michael (2005), argued that there
is no single agreed-upon definition of what constitutes work–life balance but suggested
that work–life balance practices refer to one of the following: organizational support for
dependent care, flexible work options, and family or personal leave. Within the nursing
literature, work–life balance has been defined as one’s ability to achieve and maintain a
“balance” or equilibrium between one’s paid work and life outside work, whatever “life”
involves for the individual (National League for Nursing [NLN], 2005). Outside of the
nursing literature, work–life balance has been linked with outcomes such as organizational
performance (Beauregard & Henry, 2009), quality of life (Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw,
2003), and satisfaction with family life (Fisher, Bulger, & Smith, 2009).
Exploration of work–life balance among nurses became evident in the 1990s. The
first publication that examined work–life balance among nursing professionals involved
job sharing among staff nurses to support work–life balance (Kane & Kartha, 1992) fol-
lowed by chief nurse executives’ balance of their work and personal lives (Borman, 1993).
Investigations of the work–life balance among nurse faculty followed with research on
nurse faculty members’ struggles to balance the demands of work with the demands of
a personal life (Grigsby & Megel, 1995). Work–life balance has become a significant
issue as a result of the severe global nurse faculty shortage. In 2010, the NLN reported
1,900 full-time faculty vacancies, affecting 36% of all nursing schools. Dreher, Smith
Glasgow, and Cornelius (2012) reported that among a sample of 624 doctoral nurse fac-
ulty 168 (26%) planned to retire within the next 5 years and 335 (53%) of the sample
within the next 10 years. Dreher and colleagues also noted that the rate of retirees exceeds
estimates for new faculty replacements. In addition, the American Association of Colleges
of Nursing (AACN) reported that 7.7% (n 5 1,088) of all budgeted full-time faculty nurse
positions were vacant.
The NLN (2005) identified adequate numbers of qualified faculty and support staff as a
key principle for a healthful, balanced work environment for nursing faculty. Listed within
this key principle is the element of work–life balance. The NLN referred to a healthful
work environment for nursing faculty as one that enables faculty to provide quality nursing
education. Given the shortage of nurse faculty and an inadequate number of qualified
faculty to teach, faculty workloads have dramatically increased. Increasing workload has
been identified as a known factor in nurse faculty’s dissatisfaction with work–life balance
(Brady, 2010; NLN, 2005). Satisfaction with work–life balance was found to be a key
factor to remaining employed in an academic setting among a sample of 650 Canadian
nurse faculty (Tourangeau et al., 2014; Tourangeau, Wong, Saari, & Patterson, 2015).
In a study to examine the association of faculty perceptions of work life with emotional
exhaustion and intent to leave academic nursing, Yedidia, Chou, Brownlee, Flynn, and

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Psychometric Analysis of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment Scale7

Tanner (2014) reported that, among a nationally representative sample of 3,120 full-time
nurse faculty, dissatisfaction with workload was a significant predictor ( p , .001) of
intent to leave academia. In addition, the nurse faculty role is a multidimensional one that
includes teaching, research, and service. In addition, some faculty are required to maintain
a clinical practice that can further add to an imbalance in one’s work–life domains
(Smeltzer et al., 2014b). Yedidia et al. identified work–life balance as a modifiable factor
that can decrease dissatisfaction among nurse faculty and ultimately lead them to stay in
their faculty positions.
In addition to the issues of faculty retention and the nurse faculty shortage, investigations
to examine work–life balance are likely to gain increasing importance in the future because
of changing attitudes about the importance of work–life balance among current young
nursing professionals and among future professionals (Brady, 2010; Cipriano, 2007). In
a study that examined generation-specific incentives and disincentives for nurse faulty to
remain employed, Generation X (Gen X) respondents, those born between 1964 and 1980,
selected the incentive “reasonable workload” more frequently than any other generation of
nurse faculty (Tourangeau et al., 2015). Likewise, Helms (2010) reported that Gen X nurse
faculty value work–life balance and see it as a key priority as well as one of their greatest
challenges. Work–life balance among Gen X faculty was found to be important in the find-
ings of a survey published in 2010 conducted by the Collaborative on Academic Careers
in Higher Education (COACHE). COACHE is a consortium of more than 150 colleges,
universities, and systems across North America that is committed to making the academic
workplace more attractive and equitable for early-career faculty—the cohort most critical
to the long-term future of their institutions (American Association of University Professors
[AAUP], 2006). Yet, findings from a published COACHE 2010 study challenge percep-
tions of Gen X faculty as career climbers. In this study, pretenure Gen X faculty identified
the following expectations: clear and reasonable tenure requirements; support for effective
teaching, scholarship, and professional development; work–life balance or integration; and
a sense of community and collegiality. Trower (2010) posits that these expectations are not
new or specific to Gen X but have been issues of concern for faculty on tenure lines for
decades. The COACHE (2010) study revealed that Gen X faculty do hold a commitment
to their institutions and that tenure remains the goal. Interestingly, COACHE findings
reported that only 13% of pretenure Gen X faculty are likely leave their institution after
achieving tenure. Among those 13% who plan to leave their current institution after earn-
ing tenure, 70% plan to move to another academic institution that has a better geographic
location (e.g., closer to family, better city/community/schools, lower cost of living); that
pays better; that is more prestigious; or that offers more dual-career opportunities, child-
care, or parental leave (COACHE, 2010).
Although Generation Y nurse faculty, individuals born between 1980 and 1994, are
limited in number at this time, several studies have reported the importance of maintaining
a work–life balance for this group across disciplines (McCrindle & Pleffer, 2008; Twenge,
2010; Deal, Altman, & Rogelberg, 2010). An investigation among 358 practicing clinical
nurses in New Zealand reported that 89.9% stated that work–life balance was important
and was of great consequence to them (Jamieson, Kirk, & Andrew, 2013). Cipriano (2007)
described this perspective of newer professionals as one in which they work to live rather
than live to work (p. 10).
These collective findings offer evidence of the growing importance of work–life
balance in sustaining the workforce of doctorally prepared nurse faculty. These educa-
tors are critical for the continued education of doctoral students and ultimately for the

Copyright © Springer Publishing Company, LLC

8 Smeltzer et al.

advancement of nursing science to improve the quality of health care outcomes for individ-
uals, families, and communities worldwide. In an effort to estimate the work–life balance
among nurse faculty who teach in doctoral programs, a national random survey of doctoral
nurse faculty in the United States was conducted. An examination of work–life balance
was one aim of a larger study that examined the scholarship productivity of nurse faculty
teaching in doctoral programs as well as the barriers, benefits, and strategies used by fac-
ulty to maintain their scholarship and their impact on doctoral faculty members’ work–life
balance (Smeltzer, Sharts-Hopko et al., 2015a; Smeltzer, Cantrell et al., 2015; Smeltzer,
Sharts-Hopko et al., 2015b). To assess the perceived degree of work–life balance among
doctorally prepared nurse faculty who teach in doctoral programs, the Work/Life Balance
Self-Assessment scale, developed by Fisher (2001) and later modified by Hayman (2005),
was used. This article reports the evaluation of the psychometric properties of Work/Life
Balance Self-Assessment scale with this sample of doctoral nursing program faculty. The
importance of reporting the psychometric properties for this scale include (a) the scale has
not been used previously with nursing professionals, specifically doctoral program faculty
in nursing and (b) the previous estimates of the scale’s reliability and validity properties
were reported on samples from younger age adults.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In the absence of a definition and empirical measure of the construct of work–life balance,
Fisher (2001), a psychologist, undertook an investigation to conceptualize and operational-
ize the construct. Fisher defined work/life balance as an occupational stressor regarding
issues of time, energy, goal accomplishment, and strain (p. 5). Fisher’s definition was
based on the theory of conservation of resources, one-to-one interviews with a diverse
group of employees, and published findings of qualitative research conducted on work/
family conflict.
The original Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment scale was a 21-item scale designed to
measure employees’ perceptions of work-life balance (Fisher, 2001). The scale develop-
ment sample included 540 managers employed in various organizations across the United
States and included individuals from industrial-organizational psychology, communica-
tions, and finance services. The scale addresses three aspects of work–life balance: work
interference with personal life (WIPL), personal life interference with work (PLIW), and
work/personal life enhancement (WPLE). When completing the scale, respondents are
asked to indicate the frequency with which they have experienced certain behaviors during
the past 3 months using a 7-point time-related scale (e.g., 1 5 not at all, 4 5 sometimes,
and 7 5 all the time). Higher means for items indicate that respondents have experienced
the situation described in the item more frequently, which indicate lower levels of work–
life balance.
Fisher (2001) conducted extensive psychometric testing of the scale and assessed the psy-
chometric properties of the scale among two heterogeneous samples of managers. Responses
from 273 of the 540 managers in the scale’s development sample were retained for use as a
holdout sample for cross-validation purposes. The scale’s content validity was established
by having a panel of subject matter experts rate the relevance of each item to the work/life
balance construct. No specific data estimating these ratings were provided by Fisher. To
assess the scale’s validity properties, Fisher conducted a partial confirmatory factor analysis
that yielded a three-factor model, which indicated good fit to the data across both samples.

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Psychometric Analysis of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment Scale9

Fisher reported evidence for the scale’s validity by establishing a negative correlation
between work/life balance and the variable of overall work stress (r 5 2.43, p , .01) and
a positive correlation between work/life balance and job satisfaction (r 5 .43, p , .01).
Likewise, a high positive correlation was reported between a measure of work–family con-
flict and WIPL (r 5 .84, p , .01) and a significant correlation between family–work conflict
and the dimension of PLIW (r 5 .51, p , .01). Criterion-related validity was established via
a positive strong correlation between the subscale of WIPL and stress (r 5 .51, p , .01) as
well as a negative correlation between WPLE and stress (r 5 2.36, p , .01).
Fisher (2001) reported very high internal consistency reliability for the WIPL subscale
with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .94 and .93 across both samples. An item response
theory (IRT) analysis of the WIPL demonstrated that all 13 items discriminated well.
Internal consistency reliability coefficients for the PLIW subscale were .83 and .76. Fisher
reported that all four of the PLIW items demonstrated acceptable levels of item discrimi-
nation based on the findings of the IRT analysis. Likewise, the third subscale, WLPE,
which contained four items, had an acceptable level of reliability across the two samples
with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .77 and .76 reported. Fisher also reported that the
items within this subscale had adequate item discrimination properties.
Hayman (2005) conducted a psychometric evaluation of the scale using a sample of
61 human resource administrators from a large university in Western Australia. Hayman’s
analysis was conducted on 15 items of the scale. Hayman conducted an exploratory factor
analysis, using a principal components procedure for extraction, to examine the construct
validity of the scale. The results of the factor analysis yielded a robust three-factor solu-
tion. Factor 1 (WIPL) had seven items with factor loadings ranging from .700 to .897
and an eigenvalue of 5.018, accounting for 33.46% of the variance. Factor 2 (PLIW) had
four items with factor loadings ranging from .633 to .874 and an eigenvalue of 3.147,
accounting for 20.98% of the variance. The final factor (WPLE) had four items with fac-
tor loadings ranging from .587 to .864 and an eigenvalue of 2.169, accounting for 14.46%
of the variance. The cumulative percentage of variance explained by all three factors was
68.90%. Hayman also estimated the reliabilities for the scale and reported Cronbach’s
alpha values for the three aspects of work–life balance scale of .93 for WIPL, .85 for
PLIW, and .69 for WPLE, demonstrating acceptable reliability estimates.

METHODS

Hayman’s (2005) version of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment scale was part of a
larger survey that examined factors affecting scholarly productivity and work/life balance
among nursing faculty teaching at the doctoral level. The survey was distributed electroni-
cally to a random national sample of 1,197 doctoral nursing program faculty using schools
identified on the AACN’s list of the 264 schools of nursing with doctoral programs.
Approximately 45.5% of the invited participants were PhD program faculty, 54.5% were
DNP program faculty, and 34.9% taught in both PhD and DNP programs. Eligibility
requirements to participate in the study included being a full-time nursing faculty involved
in education and/or mentoring of doctoral students in PhD or DNP programs for at least
2 years in one or more of the following roles: doctoral course faculty, research mentor,
committee chair or member, reader/examiner, informal mentor, postdoctoral supervisor,
and member of the doctoral student selection committee. The Tailored Design Method for
Internet Surveys by Dillman, Smyth, and Christian (2009) was followed in the development

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10 Smeltzer et al.

and distribution of the survey. Survey recipients were offered an incentive of a $40 gift
certificate for completing the survey. A complete description of the design, sampling
methods, and procedures of the larger study has been extensively described elsewhere
(Smeltzer et al., 2014a, 2014b).

RESULTS

Data were collected from November 2013 to January 2014. The final analytic sample
included 554 doctoral program faculty who completed the survey, representing a response
rate of 46.28%. Responses included faculty with an appointment from 71 schools of nursing
and reflect the following distribution in each region of the country: east (19.0%), midwest
(27.4%), south (26.7%), and west (23.3%). The geographic location of 3.6% of respondents
could not be identified. Of note, the largest region for nursing schools, the eastern region of
the country, had the lowest response rate. Most respondents were female (n 5 523, 94.4%),
44.4% (n 5 246) were between the ages of 51 and 60 years, and most were White (n 5 510,
92.1%). Of the total sample, 12% of respondents hold a DNP, 77.5% a PhD, 3.5% hold a
Doctor of Education degree (EdD), and 7% reported having earned another type of doctoral
degree; 49.1% were tenured, 31.6% on a tenure line, and 19.3% in either a nontenure track
or a clinical track position. A complete description of the demographics of the sample has
been reported elsewhere in the literature (Smeltzer et al., 2014a, 2014b).
Possible scores on each item of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment Scale range
from 1 to 7 with lower scores indicating better work–life balance. The score on each scale
and the total score are calculated as the mean of scores on each item in the subscale or
total scale. Total mean scores for this sample ranged from 1.00 to 6.60; the mean score
for the total sample was 3.48 6 .97 with a median score of 3.53. The skewness (2.009)
and kurtosis (2.280) statistics indicate that the work–life balance scores were normally
distributed. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment
scale were .885 for the total scale, .924 for the WIPL subscale, .815 for the PLIW subscale,
and .661 for the WPLE subscale.
A principal components analysis with varimax rotation was applied to the 15 items
from the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment scale to explore the factor structure in
the data set. A Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy statistic was
conducted. A KMO is a summary of how small the partial correlations are relative to the
original (zero-order) correlations. The value of a KMO can range from 0 to 1, with .5
being considered minimally acceptable for factor analysis. A Bartlett’s test of sphericity
was conducted to test that all of the variables were uncorrelated to meet an assumption
of a principal components analysis, which should reveal a statistically significant finding.
The KMO measure of sampling adequacy was .90, which is considered excellent, and
Bartlett’s test DNP-prepared of sphericity was significant, x2(105) 5 4,401.85, p ,.001,
indicating suitability of the data for factor analysis. Three factors met the Kaiser criterion
of eigenvalues greater than 1.00, accounting for 65.99% of the variance. Table 1 shows
the rotated factor loadings for the extracted factors as well as the factor loading matrix for
the Work/Life Balance scale. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the Work/Life Balance
Self-Assessment scale for the total scale and subscales are similar to those reported by
Hayman (2005): .93, .85, and .69 for the WIPL, PLIW, and WPLE subscales, respectively.
The factor structure shown in Table 1 conforms to the factor structure reported by Hayman.
Eight of the nine items reported in this study as loading on WIPL also loaded on WIPL

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 TABLE 1. Factor Loading Matrix for Work–Life Balance Items
Factor
Item WIPL PLIW WPLE Communality
Q. 8. My personal life suffers because of work. .879 .233 2.019 .827
Q. 7. I miss personal activities because of work. .859 .153 .025 .762
Q. 5. I neglect personal needs because of work. .834 .195 2.042 .735
Q. 10. I put personal life on hold for work. .831 .161 2.059 .721
Q. 12. I struggle to juggle work and nonwork. .786 .229 2.010 .671
Q. 2. My job makes personal life difficult. .716 .184 2.044 .549
Q. 14. I am happy with the amount of time for non-work activities. 2.706 .062 .288 .585
Q. 1. My job gives me energy to pursue personal activities. 2.603 .138 .474 .608
Q. 15. I am in a better mood because of my job. 2.542 .126 .451 .513
Q. 9. I am too tired to be effective at work. .391 .568 2.104 .487
Q. 6. I find it hard to work because of personal matters. .137 .861 2.080 .766
Q. 11. My personal life drains me of energy for work. .091 .844 2.011 .720
Q. 4. My work suffers because of my personal life. .068 .825 2.015 .685

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Q. 3. I am in a better mood at work because of personal life. 2.037 2.076 .813 .668
Q. 13. Personal life gives me energy for my job. 2.018 2.138 .763 .602
Eigenvalue 6.069 2.295 1.534
% of variance 40.459 15.302 10.227
Note. The factor loadings that are in boldface were greater than .40. WIPL 5 work interference with personal life; PLIW 5 personal life
interference with work; WPLE 5 work/personal life enhancement.
Psychometric Analysis of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment Scale11
12 Smeltzer et al.

in Hayman’s analysis. The single exception is Item 1 (“My job gives me energy to pursue
personal activities.”), which had a loading of 2.603 in this study and a loading of 2.369 in
Hayman’s study. In Hayman’s study, this item loaded most strongly (.674) on the third fac-
tor (WPLE); in this study, the item also loaded on this factor but not as strongly as on the
first factor. The second factor, PLIW, had the same four items with highest loadings in both
studies; however, in Hayman’s study, another item (Item 3: “I am in a better mood at work
because of personal life.”) was a fifth contributor, with a loading of 2.505. Nevertheless,
in both studies, this item’s strongest loading was on the third factor (WPLE). The third fac-
tor, WPLE, was similar in both studies; both reported the same four items as contributing
to this third factor. For the WIPL subscale factor, “My personal life suffers because of my
work” and “I miss personal activities because of work” were the most robust with factor
loadings of .879 and .859, respectively. The two highest loading factors on the PLIW were
“I find it hard to work because of personal matters” (.861) and “my personal life drains
me of energy for work” (.844). Within the WPLE factor, the two most robust items with
factors loadings were “I am in a better mood at work because of my personal life” (.813)
and “personal life gives me energy for my job” (.763).

LIMITATIONS

The demographics of the sample are a known limitation of the study. Most respondents
were White, middle-age females, reflecting the demographics of nursing faculty in the
United States (Kirschling, 2014). Despite a national sample being drawn, those who chose
not to participate in the study may represent other demographic characteristics and differ-
ent responses to the scale items, and nonresponders may differ from responders in some
unknown way and may have different perceptions of their work–life balance. This is the
first study to use this scale among nursing professionals and specifically doctoral program
nurse faculty; therefore, further evaluation of the psychometrics of the scale are needed
among samples of professional nurses.

CONCLUSIONS

Investigations to examine work–life balance are likely to gain increasing importance in the
future because of the continued nurse faculty shortage and as various approaches are taken
to address nurse faculty’s work–life imbalance. The Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment
scale appears to be a reliable and valid instrument to examine work–life balance among
doctoral program nurse faculty. The similarity of structure across diverse populations is
remarkable and suggests that the WLB is a robust instrument and applicable across dif-
ferent populations. In Hayman’s (2005) study, the sample was much younger; most were
younger than 40 years old as compared to the participants in this study, in which only 7%
were younger than 40 years old. The similar factor structure provides evidence for validity
across diverse ages and supports its use to investigate generational differences. Its utility
in assessing work–life balance across diverse employee groups suggests that there may be
value in assessing its utility as a measure of the work–life balance of nurses employed in
other types of positions including clinical practice and nursing administration. This will be
important because the majority of nurses will be from Generations X and Y and we will
continue to face a shortage of nurses in a rapidly evolving health care system.

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Psychometric Analysis of the Work/Life Balance Self-Assessment Scale13

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Acknowledgments. Supported by a grant (Grant No. 70182) from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation’s Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education National Program Office provided to
Dr. Suzanne Smeltzer and the Villanova University College of Nursing.

Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to Suzanne C. Smeltzer, EdD, RN, ANEF,
FAAN, Villanova University College of Nursing, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085.
E-mail: Suzanne.smeltzer@villanova.edu

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