Screening for Student Subjective Well-Being: An Analog Evaluation of Broad and Targeted Models

This brief report presents a secondary analysis of responses to the Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (SSWQ) with a sample of urban middle-schoolers. Relative classification validity evidence was evaluated for two screening models derived from responses to the SSWQ: one based on the Overall Wellbeing Scale (OWS) and the other based solely on the Academic Efficacy Subscale (AES). Results from Bayesian t tests, using several school-reported outcomes as dependent variables, indicated evidence in favor of classification validity for both the OWS and AES screening models. Yet findings also show that the evidence for the AES model was stronger than that for the OWS model. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.