Confirming and Expanding the Usefulness of the Extended Satisfaction With Life Scale (ESWLS)

Abstract

The findings provide strong evidence to support theExtended Satisfaction with Life Scale (ESWLS) as a valuable research technique for thestudy of subjective quality of life. Alfonso et al. (1996) developed the ESWLSapplying research of leading scholars who have focused on improving the measurementof quality of life over the past 30 years. Factor analysis and psychometric tests wereapplied to document the excellent properties of the ESWLS as a survey instrument. The current research proposes important modifications of theESWLS that extend its value for survey studies of diverse populations. The majormodifications include: adding survey items to measure income, health, and safety domains which havebeen demonstrated to be important components of life quality (Cummins, 1996); reducingthe number of survey items for each quality of life domain from five to two, thus decreasingthe number of items on the revised ESWLS to 22 from the original 50; and, reducing theseven-point Likert scale to five points. The last two changes were made to reduce responsetime and respondent fatigue in completing the self-report survey instrument. Respondentsincluded low income welfare clients and recently dislocated workers (n = 151); and, adult,part-time students in social work and counseling programs (n = 101). Orthogonal and oblique solutions for the modified ESWLS delineatevery comparable, stable factor structures using responses from diversepopulations. Using the additional, rescaled survey items, these findings provide strong support forthe ESWLS in its simplified and expanded formats. This application of the original andexpanded versions of the ESWLS finds the expanded version adds to the strength and usefulness ofthe instrument for the measurement of quality of life in a broader range ofcircumstances.