2023.10.12

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Measuring Burnout the Wrong Way

Typically, burnout is formally measured using one of a variety of assessments (e.g., Maslach Burnout Inventory).

Because measuring burnout using traditional inventories is some what time consuming, often the practitioner will shorten the number of questions they ask the individual or team.

This is a problem because the shortened inventory instrument has not been “validated”. That is, it hasn’t gone through a systematic process to make sure it measures the intended variable in a reliable way, for a specific use context. The key point to remember is that just because the original inventory was psychometrically validated, doesn’t mean a subset of questions is.

If you use an unvalidated assessment, the results may or may not be accurate. Thus, any action taken as a result might be conducive or might equally be the wrong course forward.

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New Tool

To provide practitioners with a faster way of measuring burnout, a new assessment has been developed and validated, and was published in 2022.

Instead of going for a low number of questions, the researchers took a different approach entirely. They have developed a visual (i.e., an image) assessment, as opposed to a written inventory.

The researchers call it The Matches Measure and it features a series of wooden matches in various states from unstruck, to partially burned, to ashes.

The measure was validated using over 1,200 participants in a variety of industries.

Results from the measure compare favorably with the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Shirom-Melamed Job Burnout Measure, and the Oldenburg Job Burnout Inventory.

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Research Citation: Muir (Zapata), C. P., Calderwood, C., & Boncoeur, O. D. (2023). Matches measure: A visual scale of job burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(6), 977–1000. doi.org/10.1037/apl0001053

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