Cross-cultural adaptation, psychometric proprieties and factor structure of the Multidimensional Student Life Satisfacti
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Cross-cultural adaptation, psychometric proprieties and factor structure of the Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS): A study with Palestinian children living in refugee camps Guido Veronese 1
&
Alessandro Pepe 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract The Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) is a quantitative tool that has mainly been developed in Western cultural contexts as a measure of children’s global satisfaction with their lives. The aim of the present study was to adapt the MSLSS for use with a sample of Palestinian primary school children (N = 1215) living in refugee camps. The instrument’s factor structure was analyzed via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The divergent validity of the MSLSS scores was tested with respect to self-rated measurements of affect balance and symptoms of trauma. The results supported a robust four-factor 14item structure (RMSEA = .030; NFI = .973, TLI = .981; CFI = .985) with good internal reliability. The four factors were satisfaction with family, friends, school and environment and they were stable across age groups. In conclusion, this adapted version of the MSLSS in Arabic is a quick, valid, and reliable scale for assessing children’s life satisfaction that may be used in contexts of political violence and low-intensity warfare. Keywords Life satisfaction . Cross-cultural adaptation . Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale . Palestinian school children
Introduction Studies on children and youth living in conditions of political conflict have shown that satisfaction with life is an key factor promoting subjective well-being and mental health (Marshall and Sousa 2017; Tol et al. 2013; Veronese et al. 2012a, b; Veronese et al. 2015). It appears that being satisfied with their lives helps children to protect themselves from the traumatic consequences of hardship. Thus, the construct of life satisfaction merits in-depth analysis aimed at identifying routes towards resilience and wellbeing for children exposed to particularly critical conditions (Sleijpen et al. 2016; Veronese and Pepe 2017a, b). Life satisfaction has been defined as a cognitive appraisal of one’s quality of life that actively contributes to subjective wellbeing (Diener 1984, 1994; Diener and Larsen 1984; Pavot and Diener 1993). A number of studies have focused
* Guido Veronese [email protected] 1
Department of Human Sciences BR. Massa^, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1 -, 20126 Milan, Italy
on life satisfaction in children and adolescents, in relation to a range of developmental determinants and stressors (Bender 1997; Collins, 1991). One of the most widely used instruments for measuring the construct is the Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction scale (MSLSS, Huebner 1994), which measures both global life satisfaction and satisfaction with each of five key domains in children’s lives (family, friends, school, living environment and self). These five domains are theory-
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