Beliefs are social in nature. and are widely shared within social groups, such as cultures.
Shared beliefs reflect how people construct their social world and how they seek meaning and
understanding of social realities. and they are context specific. General beliefs are context free
and related to a wide spectrum of social behaviours across diverse contexts, actors,
targets and periods. These general beliefs function like axioms in mathematics, thus they are
basic premises that people endorse and on which they rely to guide their actions. A better
understanding of beliefs can therefore be a useful instrument in managing a diverse
workforce, such as the workforce found in South Africa.
The objectives of this study were to investigate the replicability of the Social Axioms Survey
(SAS) in the South African Police Service (SAPS), to examine the construct equivalence and
item bias. and to assess the reliability. A cross-sectional survey design was used. The study
population consisted of applicants (N=1535) who applied for jobs in the SAPS. The SAS
instrument was administered. Descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor
analyses, scale and item level analysis and estimation of reliability were used to analyse the
results.
An exploratory factor analysis utilising target rotation applied on all 60 items of the SAS
revealed four interpretable factors (Factor 1 = Social Cynicism; Factor 2 = Reward for
Application; Factor 4 = Fate Control; and Factor 5 = Spirituality Religiosity) congruent with
the model of Leung et al. (2002). The third factor, namely Social Complexity did not
replicate. Values of Tucker's phi higher than 0.90 were found for seven culture groups (Zulu,
Sotho, Tswana, Swati, Tsonga, Venda and Pedi). This provided a strong indication of the
structural equivalence. Analyses of variance showed that item bias was not a major
disturbance. Cronbach's alpha reported lower levels of reliability.
Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/11 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Barnard, Adi |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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