Overview
A global measure of life satisfaction which asks children and young people the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of general statements about their life.
| Property | Definition | SLSS |
| Internal Consistency (Reliability) | The extent to which items on the questionnaire correlate with each other (i.e. are they likely measuring the same construct?) | Internal consistency among the 7 items was found to be strong (α = 0.82) in the original development of the measure (Huebner, 1991) |
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Test- Retest Reliability |
Degree to which same respondents have similar scores after a period of time in which the trait being measured would not be expected to have changed | Moderate test-retest reliability (0.74) was found over an interval of 1-2 weeks. (Huebner, 1991) |
| Convergent Validity | Do the measure responses correlate with a scale we are confident measures the same construct? | SLSS was found to be correlated with several other well-being measures including Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale, DOTS R Mood Scale, and Andrews-Withey Life Satisfaction Test (Huebner, 1991) |
Suitability
Self-report for children and young people aged 8-18.
Translation
We are not currently aware of any non-English versions of this measure. Please contact the measure developer for further information on translated versions.
Administration
A copy of the scale can be downloaded from the developer’s faculty webpage.
Scoring and interpretation
The scale is composed of 7 items. Items are scored on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), except for the two items “I would like to change many things in my life” and “I wish I had a different kind of life” where responses are reverse-scored from 6 to 1. A summary score is calculated by averaging or summing the 7 items.
Terms of use
Scale is not copyrighted and can be used without charge or permission by interested researchers.
References
Huebner, E. S. (1991). Initial development of the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale. School Psychology International, 12, 231-243.
Huebner, E. S. (1991). Further validation of the students' life satisfaction scale: The independence of satisfaction and affect ratings. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 9, 363-368.