Measurement invariance of the satisfaction with life scale across gender and time

Abstract

The aim of this research is to determine whether the Turkish version of Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) has measurement invariance according to gender and longitudinal invariance for Turkish university students. First study's data were collected from 500 university students (366 female, 134 male) whereas 388 students (296 female, 92 male) participated in Study 2 for three times over four-month intervals. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for measurement invariance. According to the results of the Study 1 which was invariance study according to gender, all items on the SWLS provide configural, metric and scalar invariance. In this context, the differences in points obtained on the SWLS by university students according to gender can be used to perform comparison studies. Also, Study 2 revealed that strict longitudinal invariance was found to hold. This means that equality of factor patterns, factor loadings, intercepts and residual variance were determined for university students at four- month time intervals. The SWLS can be used to make longitudinal mean and gender comparisons for Turkish university students.