History

Creation of the Job Descriptive Index

Smith, Kendall, and Hulin's book entitled Measurement of Satisfaction in Work and Retirement (1969) described the painstakingly careful development of the JDI. Patricia Cain Smith's (1917-2007) relocation from Cornell to Bowling Green State University in the mid-1960's brought with it the JDI Research Group, which has continuously operated since 1959 with different members.

Progression of the Job Descriptive Index

The Job Descriptive Index is unique among measures of job satisfaction because of its continual revision. The original version of the JDI was published in 1969. Since then, the scale has been revised in 1985, 1997, and most recently in 2009.

Continuing Research and Support for Users of the JDI

The JDI Research Group is now one of the longest continually-running research groups in the field. The group continues to research, refine, develop, and norm the JDI along with a family of other organizationally-relevant scales. Members of the group include faculty and Ph.D. students representing psychology, business, and education disciplines.

In order to support the efforts of researchers and practitioners who use the JDI, an administrative office was created and is now housed in the BGSU Department of Psychology.