TRANSFORMING PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES TOWARD LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS: VALIDATING AND RECALIBRATING THE DLOQ FOR INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

Transforming public universities into learning organizations requires measurement instruments that are psychometrically valid within public sector contexts, yet the Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ), developed by Marsick & Watkins (1996; 2003), has been applied in such settings on an untested portability assumption. Employing a psychometric validation study design based on PLS-SEM via SmartPLS 4.0, this study administered the DLOQ to 100 civil servants at Sriwijaya University as a representative Indonesian state university (PTN) through proportionate random sampling. Outer model evaluation identified several items that failed to meet psychometric validity thresholds, and their elimination demonstrably improved overall model quality, providing empirical evidence of systematic instrument non-portability. A critical paradoxical finding emerged: dimensions receiving highly positive perceptual scores simultaneously produced items that failed psychometric validation, confirming a fundamental distinction between perceived learning culture and measured learning capability. This study yielded the DLOQ-PTN, a calibrated 14-item instrument that is valid, reliable, and contextually appropriate for learning organization research in Indonesian public universities, ready for replication by future researchers.