Psychometric validation of the Italian version of Edmondson’s Psychological Safety Scale in the organizational context.

Background: Psychological Safety was defined by Amy Edmondson (1999) as a team-level phenomenon that occurs when team members believe the group is safe for taking interpersonal risks. The aim of this study was to assess psychometric properties of the Italian version of Edmondson’s Psychological Safety questionnaire, a 7-items scale conceived as a measure of psychological safety at the team level. Methods: The Italian version of Edmondson’s scale was administered to a sample of individual contributors (N=130) of a multinational corporation based in Italy; moreover, participants were asked to rate the frequency of a list of behaviours related to psychological safety’s phenomenon (e.g., feeling welcomed, listening to others). The factorial validity of the scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis and concurrent validity was assessed through correlation with the list of behaviours. Cronbach alpha was calculated to assess scale’s internal reliability. Findings: The CFA fits statistics of the one factor model of the Italian version of Edmondson’s scale exhibited a good fit (χ2(14)=29.005, p≤0.05; CFI=0.939; RMSEA=0.090; SRMR=0.051); moreover, the scale showed high internal reliability (Cronbach alpha=0.78). Finally, results of correlation analysis showed a significant positive association between psychological safety and the following behaviours: feeling welcomed (r=0,58, p<0.01), receiving positive feedback (r=0,51, p<0.01), feeling listened (r=0,44, p<0.01), listening to others (r=0,24, p<0.01). Discussion: The Italian version of Edmondson’s Psychological Safety questionnaire can be considered as a reliable, consistent and validated instrument for assessing the level of psychological safety and for designing tailored interventions in organizational context, with a focus on correlated behaviours.