A new method to measure flow in professional tasks - A FLOW-W questionnaire (FLOW at Work)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present a new Polish tool for measuring the flow experience in professional tasks - a FLOW-W Questionnaire. The questionnaire was inspired by Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) flow theory and flow in Bakker's work (2008). On its basis a set of positions was established, on which subsequently an exploratory (study 1, N = 101) and confirmatory (study 2, N = 275) factor analysis was conducted. The analysis showed the possibility of a uni- or bifactorial solution. After checking the theoretical and empirical validity of both solutions, the unifactorial solution was adopted. The validity of the questionnaire was examined, i.a. by correlations with theoretically related variables: work engagement with the UWES questionnaire (Szabowska-Walaszczyk, Zawadzka, Wojtaś, 2011) and affect at work (Zalewska, 2002). The studies showed a significant positive correlation between flow at work and work engagement (0.84) and between flow and positive affect (0.74). The reliability of the questionnaire is very high; α = 0.96. The tool has very good psychometric properties.