The effect of perceived organizational support on work engagement among police officers: The mediating role of career calling

Data were collected from frontline police officers in mainland China. The survey was conducted between May and July 2025. All questionnaires were distributed in paper form with the assistance of police training units and local police stations to ensure accessibility and the authenticity of responses. Participation was entirely voluntary, and anonymity and confidentiality were emphasized to encourage honest answers. Questionnaires with excessive missing values, straight lining, or unrealistically short completion times were excluded from the analysis. In total, 352 questionnaires were returned, of which 300 were valid and 52 were excluded as invalid, yielding an effective response rate of 85.22%. This exceeds the minimum sample size recommended by Hair et al. (2001), who suggested that the number of valid samples should be at least five times the number of measurement items in the questionnaire.