Peer Review

THE OCCUPATIONAL STRESS INDEX: AN INTRODUCTION

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Reviewed:: Mar 28, 2011 by Psychology

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Ratings

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Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

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Overview:: The website is part of the Job Stress Network and describes the utility of the Occupational Stress Index(OSI), an assessment developed for various occupational settings. It provides an overview of the indices and technical information for individuals interested in using an assessment tool to improve job conditions or the working health of individuals in certain fields as identified by the Occupational Stress Index (OSI). Students and researchers would find the sample occupational environmental research outcomes helpful in the potential application of the assessment in similar research pursuits.
Type of Material:: This material is a reference material where you would go to review a description of the Occupational Stress Index. You can also follow the links to review a sample of the actual measure of the Occupational Stress Index
Recommended Uses:: This would be a good site for graduate students to understand testing and measurement and its further application in the field. The website can be an individual use resource in terms of consultation for students querying an index to measure stress outcomes in occupations. The website could also be assigned to students in a research team to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the index, areas of potential research, or macro implications to human resources (job analysis), health and human services, wellness, or labor policy. It can be integrated in a lecture to provide discussion points on studying statistical analysis of between and within group designs. It can also be used in to examine job analysis and fixed and variable features of jobs thereby minimizing stress features of work contexts. The Occupational Stress Index (OSI) website could be used by an instructor having students take the index to examine former or present work contexts and their particular informational and stress dimensions. This would afford experience in taking the assessment and additional competency in interpreting tests outcomes. This could be used to query brainstorming or mind mapping out further research questions based on the outcomes shared in class.
Technical Requirements:: There are no technical requirements other than a web browser.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Students and researchers will be able to review a technical guide to applying the Occupational Stress Index (OSI) that provides comparative information across fields with sample research outcomes. Students can examine the particular types of stressors individuals encounter in particular occupational fields and compare these outcomes across disciplines. Students are able to view a tabular display of the measurements on the OSI. Students are able to see the expansion of the OSI to measure specific stress factors in several career fields that is under development by the researchers.
Target Student Population:: Graduate Level, Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Vocational Psychology, Industrial Engineering (Human Factors), Actuarial studies, Ergonomics studies, Welless and Holistic Health (Prevention) Studies, Organizational Behavior, Career Assessment/Testing/Measurement Courses.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: There is quite a bit of high level psychology terms used in the description of the Occupational Stress Index. A background in psychology is necessary to understand the description of the measurement. The sample measurement that is available offers scoring information, however if is necessary for learners to have a high level of previous experience in scoring measurements to understand the process. Lastly, the description of the results requires previous statistics experiences in psychology.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: This assessment tool provides a detailed and technical examination of the Occupational Stress Index (General form), OSI for professional Drivers, OSI for physicians, OSI for teachers, OSI for clerical workers, OSI for Air Transport Professionals (Air Traffic and Pilots), and OSI for production Line Workers. Some of the assessments are described though at the time of authorship not yet fully developed. The Index is noted as an advanced model of assessment in the field being able to be tailored to specific fields capturing the total work stress burden and its specificity to the work undertaken. The website highlights the indices on the index and describes these in visual tabular data format. The organization of the index is described as follows: two dimensional matrix with both levels of information transmission and stress dimensions measured noting how the scoring is configured. It affords the student or researcher to see how outcomes could be used in modifying work environments or applied in like research approaches. The section on the Occupational Stress Index is one subject area of coverage in The Job Stress Network and Centers for Social epidemiology, as such there are a range of topics outside this link that could complement a student’s research some of which include: Job Strain, Job Stress Models, studies on job stress, risk factors for heart disease (as it relates to work), health outcomes (as it relates to work), a reference listing of recent research (to 2008), Recent Popular writings on work and stress outcomes, California Research on Work and Stress factors, conferences (to Nov 2009)and Recent Abstracts and Articles in the field (to 2008). This larger aggregate website that umbrellas the Occupational Stress Index can provide a range of current information for student researcher and research professionals interested in procuring information on work, job, and occupational stress.
Concerns:: This material is extremely complex. Without prior knowledge of psychology and statistics it is possible that the learner will not understand this material. For this reason the material is not very flexible and can be used in very few situations. Also it would be difficult to use this material in the classroom. This material was published in the year 2000, with the promise of additional occupation specific indexes to come. However, the general and professional drivers indexes are the only ones available. Therefore, without the individual indexes the use is even more limited for individual jobs cannot be evaluated properly.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: The assessment affords great flexibility in terms of integrating into a range of curriculum areas and is effective at reviewing related literature in the field of occupational stress. It could be readily integrated into a testing and assessment course, human factors course, statistics course,research design, or occupational psychology course (to name a few). It efficiently provides an overview of both the general and more occupationally specific Occupational Stress Indices. It provides relevant outcome data and how it was analyzed which could readily integrate into a statistics or research exercise/example. It is effective at introducing the scales with mindfulness of potential application in research.
Concerns:: This reference requires a high level of prerequisite knowledge. Without prior experience with measurements and research terms, the description of results and scoring methods would be difficult to understand. This reference also does not provide much flexibility for its use. It would be difficult to create assignments for the use of the Occupational Stress Index and does not appear to be relevant for use in the classroom. Although the reference includes a number of tables and charts, these charts require prerequisite knowledge about psychology to understand the information. These tables also include many bulleted notes which can be difficult to follow.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: This reference has no technical requirements. All the learner must do is simply read through the material and click on the links to follow to the sample indexes. At the top of the page there are other links that lead to other material on job stress, however these pages are not the general focus of this reference material. The section on the Occupational Stress Index (OSI) is one subject area of coverage in The Job Stress Network and Centers for Social epidemiology, as such there are a range of topics outside this link that could complement a student’s research or pique a researcher in the field’s interests.
Concerns:: The complexity of this reference material makes it difficult to use. The material is very dense making reading the entire description in one setting difficult. The material is also not very visually appealing. The typing is black on a white background with long paragraphs and detailed tables make understanding all of the information difficult. The design quality is extremely poor; the lack of color makes it difficult to follow the paragraphs in a website form. This information is also unavailable as PDF, which makes printing and saving difficult.

Other Issues and Comments:: For those interested in professional drivers and stress in this occupation, additional links for reference materials are included. However, these links have little supplement to the Occupational Stress Index.
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