Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
1–6
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0734282916678494
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Brief Article
Further Validation of the
Student Subjective Wellbeing
Questionnaire: Comparing First-
Order and Second-Order Factor
Effects on Actual School Outcomes
Tyler L. Renshaw
1
and Jeffrey S. Chenier
2
Abstract
This report presents further validation evidence for the Student Subjective Wellbeing
Questionnaire (SSWQ). Analyses conducted with a sample of urban middle-school students
(Grades 5-8, N = 335) targeted two limitations from previous validation studies: the lack of
convergent validity evidence linking responses to the SSWQ with actual school outcomes and
the lack of comparative validity evidence demonstrating the relative contributions of the SSWQ’s
first-order and second-order factors for predicting criterion variables. Results from the present
study confirmed the SSWQ’s higher-order measurement model and then demonstrated that
both first-order and second-order factors had substantive effects on several school-reported
outcomes, although first-order factors were more robust predictors overall. Implications for
theory, practice, and future research are briefly discussed.
Keywords
student subjective wellbeing, measurement, assessment, school outcomes
The Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (SSWQ; Renshaw, Long, & Cook, 2015) is a
16-item self-report instrument for measuring four classes of school-specific wellbeing behavior:
joy of learning (JL), school connectedness (SC), educational purpose (EP), and academic effi-
cacy (AE). Within the context of the conceptual framework underlying this measure, wellbeing
refers to any kind of behavior—private (thoughts and feeling only observable to the self) or
public (overt actions observable to both the self and others)—that is either personally or socially
desirable (Renshaw, 2016). Given that subjective refers to self-appraisal, the term student subjec-
tive wellbeing is used in this sense to refer broadly to students’ self-appraisals of desirable behav-
ior exhibited within the school context. The four particular constructs measured by the SSWQ
were selected as representative examples of four more general domains of student wellbeing
behavior—peer and teacher relationships, educational performance and learning behaviors,
1
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
2
KIPP New Orleans Schools, LA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Tyler L. Renshaw, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, 236 Audubon Hall, Baton Rouge, LA
70803, USA.
Email: trenshaw@lsu.edu
678494JPA XX X 10.1177/0734282916678494Journal of Psychoeducational AssessmentRenshaw and Chenier
research-article 2016