Journal article
Rasch analysis of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire among adults from South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand
Lusilda Schutte, Marie P Wissing, Suria M Ellis, Paul E Jose, Dianne A Vella-Brodrick
Health and Quality of Life Outcomes | BMC | Published : 2016
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Meaning in life is a key indicator of subjective well-being and quality of life. Further developments in understanding and enhancing the construct will depend inter alia on the sound measurement thereof. This study is at the forefront of applying modern psychometric techniques to the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, a scale widely used to assess meaning in life. METHOD: The Rasch rating scale model was applied to the Presence and Search subscales of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire using a sample of 601 adults from South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. RESULTS: The Presence subscale was insensitive at high levels of presence of meaning while the majority of the respondents fel..
View full abstractGrants
Funding Acknowledgements
The South African research was financially supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa by funding for the FORT3 research project and for a doctoral scholarship. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. Funding was also provided in the form of a doctoral scholarship by the North-West University, South Africa. The New Zealand research was financially supported by a Marsden grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand awarded to the fourth author. This study is based on data from the international Eudaimonic-Hedonic Happiness Investigation (EHHI). The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on the manuscript.