Table of Contents
Abstract
The Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire (PRO-SAFE) is a specialized psychometric instrument designed to evaluate the underlying psychological and motivational drivers that encourage Employees to actively participate in workplace safety. Rather than merely assessing compliance with existing rules, this tool captures a worker's proactive mindset—their willingness to anticipate hazards, take ownership of safety protocols, and initiate improvements. The validation of the Persian version of this scale represents a significant step forward for occupational health research in non-Western contexts, providing a culturally adapted tool to measure Safety motivation in industrial settings.
By utilizing this instrument, organizational psychologists and safety managers can better understand the cognitive and emotional factors that transform passive rule-followers into active safety champions. The scale breaks down the complex concept of safety orientation into measurable psychological components, allowing for a nuanced understanding of how personal beliefs and attitudes shape organizational safety outcomes. This makes it an invaluable resource for both academic research and practical workplace interventions aimed at reducing occupational hazards.
📊 Psychometric Scorecard
24
Multidimensional
0.72
📍 Iran
Authors
Purpose
In the realm of occupational health and safety, traditional metrics often focus heavily on reactive indicators, such as accident rates or basic compliance with safety regulations. However, modern safety science recognizes that true workplace safety requires proactive employee engagement. The PRO-SAFE questionnaire fills a critical gap by providing a standardized method to quantify the psychological antecedents of Proactive safety behavior.
For graduate students and researchers studying Organizational Psychology, this scale offers a robust way to operationalize complex motivational constructs. It allows practitioners to identify whether Employees feel a genuine sense of responsibility and control over their environment, which is essential for designing targeted interventions that foster a robust safety culture rather than relying solely on external enforcement.
Construct
The theoretical framework of the PRO-SAFE scale is built upon the premise that Proactive safety behavior is driven by specific, stable motivational states. The construct is multidimensional, encompassing six distinct psychological drivers. First, 'role breadth self-efficacy' measures an individual's confidence in executing tasks beyond their core job requirements. 'Control perception' evaluates the belief that one can tangibly influence organizational safety processes. 'Psychological ownership' captures the internalization of safety as a personal concern rather than just a corporate mandate.
Furthermore, 'felt responsibility' assesses the internal obligation to contribute to safety initiatives beyond formal job descriptions. Finally, 'anticipation orientation' and 'improvement orientation' measure the cognitive focus on foreseeing future risks and the drive to elevate safety standards beyond the status quo, respectively. Together, these dimensions create a comprehensive profile of an employee's Proactive safety orientation, linking internal psychological states to observable workplace behaviors.
Validity
Establishing the validity of a translated psychometric tool is paramount to ensure it measures what it intends to measure within a new cultural context. In this validation study, the researchers rigorously evaluated both content and construct validity. Expert panels confirmed the relevance and clarity of the items, yielding strong content validity indices, with the content validity index and ratio reaching 0.83 and 0.85, respectively.
Furthermore, the scale demonstrated excellent convergent validity when compared against established measures of Safety behavior. Specifically, the dimensions of the PRO-SAFE scale showed robust positive correlations with safety compliance and safety participation, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.372 to 0.792. This indicates that the psychological drivers measured by the scale are meaningfully associated with actual self-reported safety behaviors in the workplace.
Convergent & Discriminant Validation Correlations
| Reference Instrument | Correlation Coefficient (r) |
|---|---|
| Neal and Griffin's Safety Performance Scale (Safety Compliance and Safety Participation dimensions) | r=0.372 to 0.792 |
Reliability
Reliability in psychometrics refers to the consistency and stability of a measurement tool. For the Persian version of the PRO-SAFE scale, internal consistency was thoroughly examined to ensure that the items within each subscale reliably measure the same underlying concept. The analysis revealed strong internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the six dimensions ranging from 0.717 to 0.880.
These values fall well within the acceptable to excellent range for psychological research, indicating that the translated items hang together cohesively. Additionally, a Guttman split-half coefficient of 0.932 was observed, further cementing the tool's reliability. For researchers, these metrics provide confidence that the scale will produce stable and dependable results when deployed across similar industrial populations.
Factor Analysis
To verify the structural integrity of the translated scale, the researchers employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). This advanced statistical technique is crucial for determining whether the empirical data aligns with the theoretical model proposed by the original scale developers. The analysis successfully confirmed the original six-factor structure of the PRO-SAFE questionnaire in the Persian-speaking sample.
This finding is particularly important because it demonstrates cross-cultural structural invariance; the distinct psychological drivers—such as self-efficacy, perceived control, and psychological ownership—remain conceptually distinct and measurable in this new demographic. The confirmation of this multidimensional model allows researchers to confidently use the subscales independently or collectively to profile safety orientations.
Subscales
| Subscale | Items | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Role breadth self-efficacy | A1, A2, A3, A4 | Measures an individual's confidence in their ability to participate in and execute safety-related tasks beyond their standard job requirements. |
| Control perception | A5, A6, A7, A8 | Evaluates the degree to which Employees believe they can actively influence and impact operational safety processes. |
| Psychological ownership | A9, A10, A11, A12 | Assesses the feeling that workplace safety is a deeply personal issue and that the individual 'owns' the safety of their environment. |
| Felt responsibility | A13, A14, A15, A16 | Measures the internal willingness and obligation to participate in safety programs and take action beyond official duties. |
| Anticipation orientation | A17, A18, A19, A20 | Captures a forward-looking mindset focused on identifying potential hazards and managing risks before incidents occur. |
| Improvement orientation | A21, A22, A23, A24 | Evaluates the desire and drive of individuals to continuously enhance safety protocols and exceed baseline safety standards. |
Instrument
| Test Type | Self-report questionnaire |
| Format | 24 items, 5-point Likert scale |
| Scoring | Scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Subscale scores are calculated based on their respective items. |
| Language | Persian |
| Population | Employees |
| Age Group | Adults |
| Administration | Self-administered |
Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire Items
Items are currently not available
The individual items of this scale are not publicly available. Researchers interested in using this instrument should contact the original authors directly to request the scale materials.
Sample
The validation sample consisted of 252 Employees working at the Yazd Steel Complex in Iran. Participants had a mean age of 37.17 years (SD = 6.02, range 22-53) and an average job experience of 12.26 years. The sample was predominantly married (94.8%) and worked either in three-shift (76.2%) or day-work (23.8%) schedules.
Permissions & Test Year
Permission to translate and localize the questionnaire was obtained from the original designers (Curcuruto et al.).
Test Year: 2023
Cite This Paper
Reza Jafari Nodoushan, Gholam Hossein Halvani, Reyhane Sefidkar, Hamidreza Mokarami, Mahdi Jafari Nodoushan (2023). Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire. BMC psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-023-01474-y
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Cite this article
Mohammed looti (2026). Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/proactive-safety-role-orientation-questionnaire/
Mohammed looti. "Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 14 Aug. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/proactive-safety-role-orientation-questionnaire/.
Mohammed looti. "Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/proactive-safety-role-orientation-questionnaire/.
Mohammed looti (2026) 'Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/proactive-safety-role-orientation-questionnaire/.
[1] Mohammed looti, "Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, August, 2026.
Mohammed looti. Proactive-Safety Role Orientation questionnaire. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.