The measurement of effort

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Abstract
A series of studies examined the reliability and validity of an index of perceived physical effort assessing the metabolic and ergonomic costs of task performance. In one set of studies, a wide variety of occupational and recreational tasks were rated on the physical effort required. Groups doing the rating included personnel specialists, non-specialists, males and females. Subjects had not necessarily performed the tasks previously, nor did they know the metabolic values of these tasks. In all groups, interrater agreement was high on the ratings of the effort required of these tasks. Also, predictions of various indices of actual metabolic costs from these ratings were high. In other studies, high correlations were obtained between ratings on the effort index and actual performance in manual materials-handling tasks. These studies also determined the particular physical ability requirements of tasks most related to perceived effort. The usefulness of the physical effort scale as a job-analysis method for physically demanding work is discussed.

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