Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire

The Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (SSWQ) is a free, brief, evidence-based rating scale for measuring youths' well-being at school.

SSWQ Overview

The SSWQ taps into 5 aspects of student subjective well-being that are centered around positive emotions, positive relationships, positive values or meaning, and positive performance. It can also be used to assess general student well-being.

• Joy of Learning (JL) refers to experiencing positive emotions and cognitions while engaged in learning tasks.
• School Connectedness (SC) refers to relating well to and feeling cared for by others at school, including peers and adults.
• Educational Purpose (EP) refers to valuing school and academic tasks as important and meaningful.
• Academic Efficacy (AE) refers to self-evaluating academic behaviors as effectively meeting school demands.
• General Student Wellbeing (GSW) is a composite of JL, SC, EP, and AE and refers to students' overall or global perception of their well-being at school.

Here are other important characteristics of the SSWQ:

• Informant: self-report
• Total items: 16
• Age/grade range: 11–18 years/grades 6–12
• Item readability: 3rd–4th grade reading level
• Scales: 4 subscales, 1 total scale
• Completion time: 3 minutes
• Administration: paper-and-pencil or online
• Scoring: manual or calculator
• Cost ($): FREE

Using the SSWQ

The SSWQ is intended for use in school-based mental health research and practice. Here are some ways people have used the SSWQ across different levels of service delivery in schools:

• Tier 1 / universal level. Schoolwide well-being screener to complement mental health problem screeners; outcome monitor for evaluating schoolwide social-emotional learning or well-being promotion programming.
• Tier 2 / targeted level. Well-being progress monitor to complement problem-oriented progress monitoring tools.
• Tier 3 / intensive level. Well-being progress monitor (same as Tier 2); strengths-based measure for informing comprehensive psychoeducational or psychodiagnostic assessments.

Scoring the SSWQ

SSWQ scale scores are produced by simple sum scoring:

• JL subscale = items 1 + 5 + 9 + 13
• SC subscale = items 2 + 6 + 10 + 14
• EP subscale = items 3 + 7 + 11 + 15
• AE subscale = items 4 + 8 + 12 + 16
• GSW total scale = sum all 16 items

Average-item scores for each scale can be produced by dividing the scale score by the number of items in the scale:

• Subscale example. If the JL scale score = 8, then the average-item score is calculated like this: 8 (scale score)/4 (# items in scale) = 2.
• Total scale example. If the GSW total score = 50, then the average-item score is calculated like this: 50 (scale score)/16 (# items in scale) = 3.13.

Interpreting SSWQ Scores

Higher SSWQ scale scores are interpreted as indicating greater levels of student subjective well-being, and vice versa. More specifically, higher scores suggest students experience well-being at school with greater frequency.

There are two methods for interpreting SSWQ scale scores: (1) response-referenced interpretations and (2) norm-referenced interpretations. You can choose one or the other, or both.

Response-Referenced Interpretations

Response-referenced interpretations take the average-item score and map that onto the closest anchor from the 4-point response scale. For average-item scores with decimals .50 or greater, round up to the response anchor associated with the next highest whole number. Round down if the decimal is .49 or lesser.

Here is an interpretation guide for mapping average-item score ranges onto their respective item response anchors:

• 1.0–1.49 = almost never
• 1.5–2.49 = sometimes
• 2.5–3.49 = often
• 3.5–4.0 = almost always

Scaling from average-item scores to simple sum scores, here is an interpretation guide for the JL, SC, EP, and AE subscale scores:

• 4–5 = almost never
• 6–9 = sometimes
• 10–13 = often
• 14–16 = almost always

And summing all of the subscale scores, here's an interpretation guide for the GSW total score:

• 16–23 = almost never
• 24–39 = sometimes
• 40–55 = often
• 56–64 = almost always

Following are examples to illustrate the response-referenced interpretation method, showing how higher scale scores are interpreted as experiencing well-being with greater frequency at school.

• Subscale example. If the SC scale score = 12, then the average-item score = 3. The interpretation of the response anchor "3" is that, on average, the student often experiences school connectedness.
• Total scale example. If the GSW total score = 29, then the average-item score = 1.81. Given the decimal is greater than .49, we round up to the item response anchor associated with "2," which is sometimes. The interpretation is that, on average, the student sometimes experiences well-being at school.
• Comparison example. Imagine we have two students with different AE scores. Student 1 has an AE sum score = 5; Student 2 has an AE sum score = 14. The interpretation is that, on average, Student 1 experience academic efficacy almost never whereas Student 2 experiences academic efficacy almost always. Depending on the assessment context, this might suggest a practically meaningful difference between Student 1 and Student 2's academic efficacy.
• Multiple time points example. Imagine we have GSW total scores for a student from two different time points. At Time 1, the GSW total sum score = 36; at Time 2, the GSW total sum score = 45. The interpretation is that, on average, the student reported sometimes experiencing global well-being at Time 1 whereas often experiencing global well-being at Time 2. Depending on the assessment context, this might suggest improvement in the student's global well-being over time.

Norm-Referenced Interpretations

Norm-referenced interpretations take the scale score and transform it to show how it relates with scores from other students within a comparison sample. More specifically, these scores are understood in terms of how they relate to the average score from the comparison sample: scores can be below average, in the average range, above average, and so on.

Comparison or "norming" samples can be collected at different levels: global, national, regional, and local. Research has not yet provided norm-referenced interpretations for SSWQ scale scores at any of these levels. So, SSWQ users are welcome to create their own local norms, at the building or district or regional level. Researchers are also welcome to create their own norms at whatever comparison level is useful to them.

When creating norm-referenced interpretations for SSWQ scores, we recommend transforming into T-scores because that is the most common standardized metric used for other mental health rating scales. Here is an example interpretation guide for T-scores that users might choose to use for SSWQ subscale and total scores:

• < 30 = very low well-being
• 30–39 = below-average well-being
• 40–60 = average well-being
• 61–70 = above-average well-being
• > 70 = very high well-being

Following are examples to illustrate the norm-referenced interpretation method via T-scores that are normed at the level of a local school district.

• Subscale example. If the SC T-score = 56, then the interpretation is that the student experiences average levels of school connectedness compared with other students in the district.
• Total scale example. If the GSW T-score = 27, then the interpretation is that the student experiences a very low level of global well-being compared to their peers in the district.
• Comparison example. Imagine we have two students with different AE scores. Student 1 has an AE T-score = 45; Student 2 has an AE T-score = 72. The interpretation is that, compared with other students in the district, Student 1 experiences an average level of academic efficacy whereas Student 2 experiences a very high level of academic efficacy. This suggests a meaningful difference between Student 1 and Student 2's academic efficacy.
• Multiple time points example. Imagine we have GSW total scores for a student from two different time points. At Time 1, the GSW T-score = 33; at Time 2, the GSW total sum score = 63. The interpretation is that, compared with their peers in the district, the student reported a below average level of global well-being at Time 1, followed by an above average level of global well-being at Time 2. This suggests meaningful improvement in the student's global well-being from Time 1 to Time 2.

Accessing the SSWQ

You can download a free PDF version of the SSWQ via the Open Science Framework. If the link is not working, send me an email to request a copy.

Licensing

The SSWQ is a "free cultural work" licensed under the Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). There is no need to obtain permission prior to using or sharing. Please just cite appropriately when you do. And if you adapt any of the SSWQ materials, please note your changes.

If you require a permission letter to use the SSWQ in your research or practice situation, here is one you can download:

Support

Got questions about the SSWQ? Send me an email and I'll reply when I can.

Looking for other free resources for supporting school-based mental health work? Check out my Resources & Tools page on this website.

References

Here are key references to cite when using the SSWQ in research or practice. The first reference is to the SSWQ's original development and validation study. The second reference is to the current version of the SSWQ you can download from the Open Science Framework.

1. Renshaw, T. L., Long, A. C. J., & Cook, C. R. (2015). Assessing adolescents’ positive psychological functioning at school: Development and validation of the Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire. School Psychology Quarterly, 30(4), 534–552. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000088
2. Renshaw, T. L. (2024). Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (SSWQ). Publicly available measure. https://osf.io/48av7