Abstract
This article describes the development and validation of a self- descriptive and self-report scale for measuring life well-being in Nigeria. The construction of the scale was done considering the generally accepted principles and procedures for scale development. A pool of 200 initial items was generated and, after sorting them out and subjecting them to item analysis and expert judgement, 187 items emerged. A sample of 1200 students and staff of universities and staff of public secondary schools in Ogun State, chosen through stratified sampling, was used. The response scores were then subjected to exploratory principal component analysis which led to the reduction of items to 94 forming the shorter form of the scale. Results also revealed that each dimension of life well-being significantly and positively related to emotional intelligence and life skills and significantly and negatively related to propensity to drug abuse and depression, confirming the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale. The dimensions of life well-being were also significant in predicting academic (R = .701, Adj. R2 = .458, F9, 112 = 72.461, p <.05), career (R = .557, Adj. R2 = .304, F9, 112 = 27.285, p < .05), marital (R = .421, Adj. R2 = .173, F9, 108 = 18.261, p < .05), and general life success (R = .301, Adj. R2 = .087, F9, 176 = 5.628, p < .05). Thus, the LWBS has sound psychometric properties.
