The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS): Psychometric Properties and Observed Scores in University Students

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Satisfaction with life is a wide studied component of well-being, largely documented along the recent decades. Also, it constitutes one of the most relevant variables within the positive and social psychology to study outcomes in different spheres of the life. Regarding the scholar context, it has been documented through several research experiences that the psychological well-being and, concretely the life satisfaction, has a broad importance on academically performance and behaviors observed within the scholar environment, as well as the achievement of academic goals. Satisfaction With Life Scale is one of the most used questionnaires to asses this factor. For this reason, the general objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the SWLS in Colombian university students. This study used a sample composed by 150 university students of Colombian higher education institutions with a mean of 19.64 years of age, and belonging to seven different fields of knowledge or careers. The questionnaire consisted in two sections: In the first section, university students were asked about demographic variables such as age, gender, relationship status and coursing career. For the second section, it was used Diener’s Satisfaction With Life Scale (Likert scale - 5 items). The results of this application show a relatively high satisfaction with life among Colombian university students. Although not gender differences were found, it has been established a set of differences according to career. Regarding psychometric properties, it was found a good factorial solution, and a set of favorable internal consistency coefficients. Satisfaction with life is an essential variable to be considered as part of the approach to well-being and quality of life of people. This study constitutes a significant effort taking into account that it allows to learn more about this phenomenon in a population of which (in the Colombian context, and even others) it has been done very little in terms of research of Subjective Well-Being and its relationship to outcomes in different spheres of life.