Validation of the group nuclear safety climate questionnaire.

Introduction: Group safety climate is a leading indicator of safety performance in high reliability organizations. Zohar and Luria (2005) developed a Group Safety Climate scale (ZGSC) and found it to have a single factor.

Method: The ZGSC scale was used as a basis in this study with the researchers rewording almost half of the items on this scale, changing the referents from the leader to the group, and trying to validate a two-factor scale. The sample was composed of 566 employees in 50 groups from a Spanish nuclear power plant. Item analysis, reliability, correlations, aggregation indexes and CFA were performed.

Results: Results revealed that the construct was shared by each unit, and our reworded Group Safety Climate (GSC) scale showed a one-factor structure and correlated to organizational safety climate, formalized procedures, safety behavior, and time pressure.

Impact On Industry: This validation of the one-factor structure of the Zohar and Luria (2005) scale could strengthen and spread this scale and measure group safety climate more effectively.