CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The chapter focuses on methodology used to explore the relationship between workplace
bullying, occupational injuries, psychological distress and psychosocial safety climate. It covers
research design, population and sample, instrumentation, data analysis procedure and methods
associated with data analysis.

3.1 Research Design

Sellitz, Jahoda, Deutsch and Cook (1965 p.50) define research design as the arrangement of
conditions necessary to collect and analyse data in a way that aims to combine relevance to
research objective with economy in procedure. The major objective is to plane and structure the
research project in a way that increases the validity of the study (Mouton & Marais, 1996). It
includes study type, settings, time horizon and unit of analysis which are discussed below:
3.1.1 Type of Study
The nature of the study is causal targeted to gauge the impact of workplace bullying on
occupational injuries. It also gives clues of the mechanism i.e. psychological distress and the
buffering role of psychosocial safety climate through which this link of workplace bullying on
occupational injuries can be established. The study is based on self-reported perception of
employees about the variables.
3.1.2 Study Setting
Workers of the cement industry were contacted and questionnaires were completed during work
hours in their natural work environment so its a field study.

3.1.3 Time Horizon

The data has been collected within two months (May 2015 to June 2015). As it was collected at
one time so the design is cross sectional in nature.
3.1.4 Unit of Analysis
Unit of analysis is individual, workers from the cement producers were individually asked to fill
the questionnaires (self administered survey) through HR department and through personal
contacts.

3.2 Population:
A research population is the collection of individuals or objects that have similar characteristics
(Castillo, 2009). The population of the current study are all the industrial workers working in
cement plants.

3.3 Sampling:
It is method or process of selecting representative part of population for the study. Convenience
sampling technique has been used for the current study due to time and resource constraints. The
said technique refers to selection of sample which is at ease to access (Cohen, Manion &
Morrison, 2007). Sample of 400 respondents was established and it was assumed that the
suggested sample would represent the population.
3.3.1 Sample Characteristics:
Gender is excluded from the sample as all the first line workers are male in cement industry. The
following tables indicate the sample characteristics from whom the data was collected.

Table 3.1 Demographic Characteristics

Frequency

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

18 - 25 years

65

22.1

22.1

26 - 33 years

124

42.2

64.3

34 - 41 years

75

25.5

89.8

42 - 49 years

22

7.5

97.3

50 years - more

2.7

100.0

Middle

66

22.4

22.4

Matric

129

43.9

66.3

Intermediate

59

20.1

86.4

Bechelor

32

10.9

97.3

Masters

2.7

100.0

5-10 years

149

50.7

50.7

11-15 years

86

29.3

79.9

16-20 years

42

14.3

94.2

21-25 years

12

4.1

98.3

26-30 years

1.4

99.7

35-more years

.3

100.0

Age

Qualification

Experience

Sample consists of first line workers of the cement industry who were more exposed to the
workplace injuries. Out of 294 respondents, 22.1 % belonged to 18-25 years of age group, 42.2%
26-33 years, 25.5% 34-41 years, 7.5% 42-49 years and 2.7% belonged to 50 years or more.
Mostly the respondents were young with the age of 26 33 years.

22.4% of the respondents were with eight years of education, 43.9 % high school, 20%
intermediate, 11% with Bachelors degree and 2.7% with Masters level of education. Mostly the
education level of the sample was matric.
50.7% were having 5-10 years of experience, 29.3% 11-15 years, 14.3% 16-20 years, 4.1% with
21-25 years of experience, 1.4% with 26 to 30 years and 0.3% are with 35 years or above than 35
years of experience were noted. 5-10 years experience found to be more frequent in the sample.

3.4 Instrumentation
3.4.1 Workplace Bullying
Exposure to bullying behaviours in the workplace was measured with the 22-item Negative Acts
Questionnaire Revised (NAQ-R) developed by Einarsen, Hoel and Notelaers (2009). NAQ-R
measures direct, indirect, personal and work related bullying. Response categories range from 1
5 (never, now and then, monthly, weekly and daily). This is the most widely used
scale to measure the construct (see, e.g., Nielsen, Hetland, Matthiesen & Einersen, 2012;
Mikkelsen & Einersen, 2002) and its different version for different cultures have been introduced
but the most valid is NAQ-R.
3.4.2 Psychological Distress
For Psychological Distress, a 10 items scale called Kessler 10 (K10; Kessler and Mroczek, 1994)
has been used in the study. This scale gauges psychological distress, including depression and
anxiety experienced during the 4 weeks period. A 5 point Likert scale was used to measure
having a range none of the time to all the times.

3.4.3 Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC)

This was assessed using the PSC-12, a twelve item scale which was derived by Hall, Dollard, and Coward (2010) from a 26 items
scale of Dollard and Kang (2007). The questionnaire measures four sub-dimensions of PSC each with three items. These
dimensions include commitment,

management priority, organizational communication and organizational

participation. All items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1(strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and were added together to form a composite scale.
3.4.4 Occupational Injuries
The measure for Occupational injuries was taken from Barling, Loughlin and Kelloway, (2002)
which was mainly for manufacturing concerns. For Injuries, Self-reported measures consisted of
asking the frequency in which each specific injury had occurred over the 12-month period on a
5-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (frequently). The representative item for this questionnaire is
Strains or Sprains.

3.5 Reliability Analysis:

The table below shows the Chronbachs Alpha; it is the degree of internal consistency and
reliability. Coefficient alpha value must exceed the minimum standard of 0.70 levels to provide
good estimates to retain the items (Nunnally & Bernstein 1994).

Table 3.2. Reliability measurement

Variables

No. of Items

Cronbachs alpha ()

Workplace Bullying

22

.925

Psychological Distress

10

.911

Psychosocial Safety Climate

12

.964

Occupational injuries

09

.887

3.6 Data Collection

The data were collected through structured close ended questionnaire via self-administered
sessions. Approximately 400 questionnaires were circulated and 326 were collected back. So
response rate remained 81%. Out of the total collected surveys, 32 were discarded due to
extensive missing data leaving 294 usable responses. As the major chunk of the sample was
matriculate, so questionnaire was translated in Urdu with the consultation of two English
lecturers teaching in a local public sector college.

3.7 Data Analysis Tools

Two softwares were used for data analysis. Amos was used for confirmatory factor analysis
while SPSS was used for reliability, descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. Hayes
(2012) process method was used for regression, mediation and moderation analysis.