Development and validation of a job family specific position analysis questionnaire

This study examined the feasibility of developing a job (clerical) family specific PAQ which could yield substantially the same amount of information as the original PAQ. By deleting 80 minimally applicable items, a 107-item custom PAQ was developed. A component analysis of the custom PAQ resulted in 18 interpretable dimensions which were quite similar to many of the original 32 dimensions. The ability of the 18 dimensions to predict compensation data and discriminate between job levels was investigated. The use of custom PAQ division data for these purposes was also investigated. Results of the study indicated that the 18 (custom PAQ) clerical dimensions were able to discriminate between job levels while retaining the predictive power of the original PAQ. Additionally, the modified PAQ division scores exhibited significant utility in differentiating among job levels, but were less efficient in predicting compensation than the dimension scores.The authors would like to express their deep appreciation to Brett Avner, Elizabeth Carlson, Dave Drehmer, and Jack Edwards for their help with the study. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Ernest J. McCormick and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.