Confirmatory factor analysis of the multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale

The assessment of children’s life satisfaction (LS) is a relatively new area of research. To date, one of the most comprehensive investigations in this area has culminated in the development of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale [MSLSS; Huebner, E. S. (1994). Preliminary development and validation of a multidimensional life satisfaction scale for children. Psychological Assessment, 6, 149–158]. The first multidimensional scale of its kind, the MSLSS assesses children’s subjective perceptions of LS in five conceptually relevant domains: Family, Friends, School, Self, and Living Environment. Initial investigations of its psychometric properties and relationships to theoretically related variables have supported the validity and reliability of the MSLSS. The present study builds upon this past research by assessing the relative goodness-of-fit of the MSLSS using confirmatory factor analytic procedures by means of the SPSS LISREL statistical package. Subjects were 314 children in Grades 3–8. Results of the analyses and their implications for the reliability and validity of the MSLSS are discussed.