Evaluation of the Team Workload Questionnaire (TWLQ) in a Team

The present study was designed to evaluate the team workload questionnaire (TWLQ) in a task that was distinct from the task used to create it. The TWLQ was created from workload ratings generated by members of athletic sports teams. Given that such teams represent only a portion of the diversity of operational teams, we aimed to assess the generalizability of the TWLQ. The present study applied the TWLQ in a collaborative choice task (hiring decision) to determine whether the factor structure reported in the initial publication of the scale would generalize from the execution tasks it was developed from to a disparate team task focused on consensus building. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the present data (N = 144) were a poor fit for the three-factor structure of the TWLQ. Subsequent exploratory factor analysis revealed a much more interrelated model of team workload with no clear division between the three conceptual factors described in the original validation of the TWLQ. The factor structure of the TWLQ did not generalize to the present team-choice task. Given that the duties of operational teams vary, it is critical that future research examine how the conceptual structure of team workload may be altered by task type