Validation
of the Satisfaction With Life Scale in a Sample of Hong Kong University
Students
J. Sachs |
Exploratory
and confirmatory analyses were used to examine the Satisfaction With
Life Scale in a sample of Hong Kong university students. The exploratory
analyses showed that the Satisfaction With Life Scale had good internal
consistency reliability and that it appeared to measure a unidimensional
construct. Comparison of Hong Kong students' scores on the Satisfaction
With Life Scale with the normative data for American students and
mainland Chinese and Korean students showed that Hong Kong students
were more similar, on average, to the American students than to the
Asian students in their overall satisfaction with life. Further analysis
of the scale's structure using confirmatory factor analysis found
that a modified two-factor model defined by present and past life
satisfaction items and which allowed the error variances for two
items to correlate fit the data best. However, inspection of the
fit indices for the modified two-factor model suggested that it over
fit the data, while a modified one-factor model, with correlated
errors, also showed acceptable fit. Since the modified one-factor
model was more parsimonious and agreed with the theoretical development
of the scale as a unidimensional measure of general overall life
satisfaction, it was retained. It is suggested that because of the
Satisfaction
With Life Scale's good
reliability and cross-cultural validity along with its brevity and broad-band
nature in assessing overall satisfaction with life it could have wide
applicability as an ancillary measure in a number of research areas. Key words: SWLS, reliability, validity, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Hong Kong University students |