Scales & Measures

Beliefs About Seeking and Receiving Help (HELPS)

What it measures: people’s beliefs about seeking and receiving help, and how those beliefs relate to help behaviors and well-being.

Format: 5 belief dimensions · factor-analytically validated · predictive (time-separated) evidence

Dimensions (HELPS)

• Helpful — help is useful
• Enjoyable — the help process is enjoyable
• Lessens — help diminishes me
• indePendence — help threatens my independence
• Safe — helpers can be trusted

Safe and Enjoyable beliefs explained the most variance across help seeking, help receiving, and subjective well-being, and showed incremental validity for receiving help, life satisfaction, and positive affect.

Download scale & supplemental materials (PDF)

How to citeScotney, V. S., & Tay, L. (2025). Beliefs about seeking and receiving help: A mixed-methods analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2025.2549765

Campus Well-Being Measure (CWBM)

What it measures: a holistic, multi-dimensional measure of college-student well-being that predicts academic and behavioral outcomes.

Format: 49 items · validated on two large student samples

Key dimensions

• Grit (most important)
• Positive subjective well-being
• Negative subjective well-being
• + additional holistic well-being themes

Well-being modestly predicted grades, course attendance, time spent in academic buildings, and student-organization involvement; the grit theme was the strongest predictor.

Download the CWBM survey (PDF)

How to citeZhou, S., Weiss, H. A., McCuskey, B., & Tay, L. (2025). College student well-being: Explaining academic and behavioral outcomes from a representative college student sample. Journal of Happiness Studies, 26(5), 75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-025-00906-3

Needs-based Off-job Crafting Scale (NOCS)

What it measures: how people proactively shape their non-work (off-job) time to satisfy six psychological needs that support recovery and well-being.

Format: 18 items · 6 dimensions (3 items each) · 5-point scale (1 = never to 5 = very often)

Dimensions (off-job crafting for…)

• Detachment
• Relaxation
• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Meaning
• Affiliation

Kujanpää et al. (2022) developed the NOCS to capture needs-based off-job crafting — the deliberate big or small changes people make to their non-work time to meet personal goals and psychological needs, linked to recovery, well-being, and optimal functioning across cultures and work contexts.

NOCS scale — items & instructions (PDF)

How to citeKujanpää, M., Syrek, C., Tay, L., Kinnunen, U., Mäkikangas, A., Shimazu, A., Wiese, C. W., Brauchli, R., Bauer, G. F., Kerksieck, P., Toyama, H., & de Bloom, J. (2022). Needs-based off-job crafting across different life domains and contexts: Testing a novel conceptual and measurement approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 959296. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.959296

Critical Thinking in AI Use Scale

What it measures: a person’s dispositional tendency to think critically when using generative AI — verifying outputs, seeking to understand how AI works, and reflecting on its broader implications.

Format: 13 items · 3 subscales · 5-point Likert (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree)

Subscales

• Verification of source & content
• Motivation to understand AI
• Reflection on responsible AI

Lau et al. (2026) developed and validated this scale across six studies (N = 1,341) to capture how people exercise oversight over generative AI outputs — with higher scores predicting more frequent verification, more accurate veracity judgments, and deeper reflection about responsible AI.

Critical Thinking in AI Use Scale — items & instructions (PDF)

How to citeLau, G. R., Low, W. Y., Tay, L., Guevarra, Y. A., Gašević, D., & Hartanto, A. (2026). Understanding critical thinking in generative artificial intelligence use: Development, validation, and correlates of the critical thinking in AI use scale. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 22, 101103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2026.101103

SETPOINT Vocational Interest Dimensions — Short Scales

What it measures: vocational interests across the eight SETPOINT dimensions, in brief forms for efficient assessment.

Format: three short forms — 8, 24, and 41 items · outperformed RIASEC in predicting occupational membership

The 8 SETPOINT dimensions

• Health Science
• Creative Expression
• Technology
• People
• Organization
• Influence
• Nature
• Things

Measuring interests at the dimension level allows a more nuanced assessment of heterogeneous vocational factors with strong psychometric precision.

Download the short interest measures (PDF)

How to citeHou, D. X., Su, R., & Tay, L. (2024). Measuring SETPOINT vocational interest dimensions: The development and validation of three short scales. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 149, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2023.103959

Mechanisms of Engagement in the Arts & Humanities (RAISE)

What it measures: the five mechanisms through which engagement in the arts and humanities enhances well-being.

Format: multi-factor scales · predictive & concurrent validity for flourishing · measurement equivalence across gender and time

Mechanisms (RAISE)

• Reflection
• Acquisition
• Immersion
• Socialization
• Expression

Each mechanism has a validated factor structure (e.g., reflection: life/worldview, emotional, external; immersion: effort, passage of time), with good test–retest reliability.

Download the RAISE scale (PDF)

How to citeThapa, S., Vaziri, H., Shim, Y., Tay, L., & Pawelski, J. O. (2023). Development and validation of the Mechanisms of Engagement in the Arts and Humanities scales. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000556

Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving for Children (CIT-Child)

What it measures: child well-being — an Italian adaptation of the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT).

Format: 12-factor model · confirmatory factor analysis validated

Developed for Italian children based on the CIT (Su, Tay, & Diener, 2014); CFA supported a 12-factor structure measuring constructs related to, but distinct from, existing instruments.

Download the CIT-Child (PDF)

How to citeRita Andolfi, V., Tay, L., Confalonieri, E., & Traficante, D. (2017). Assessing well-being in children: Italian adaptation of the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving for children (CIT-Child). TPM: Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 24(1), 127–145. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM24.1.8

Attitudinal Learning Inventory (ALI)

What it measures: attitudinal learning — a holistic view of learning and instruction beyond traditional metrics.

Format: 15 items · validated across two samples (N = 1,009)

Dimensions

• Cognitive
• Affective
• Behavioral
• Social

The ALI showed good psychometric properties and correlated with behavioral metrics of class engagement.

Download the ALI (PDF)

How to citeWatson, S. L., Watson, W. R., & Tay, L. (2018). The development and validation of the Attitudinal Learning Inventory (ALI): a measure of attitudinal learning and instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 66, 1601–1617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-018-9625-7

Leisure Affect & Leisure Satisfaction Scales

What it measures: the subjective quality of leisure, and how it relates to well-being across work, family, and life.

Format: two short unidimensional scales · good internal consistency & stability

Scales

• Leisure Affect
• Leisure Satisfaction

Both scales show construct validity through associations with well-being in the work, family, and general-life domains, and are brief and easy to administer.

Leisure Affect Scale (PDF)

How to citeKuykendall, L., Xue, L., Lei, X., Tay, L., Cheung, H. K., Kolze, M., Lindsey, A., Silvers, M., & Engelsted, L. (2017). Subjective quality of leisure & worker well-being: Validating measures & testing theory. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 103(2), 14–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.07.007

Subjective Underemployment Scale (SUS)

What it measures: subjective underemployment across the six major domains identified by Feldman (1996).

Format: 6 domains · convergent validity with work outcomes & job attitudes

Domains

• Pay
• Status
• Field
• Hours
• Involuntary temporary work
• Poverty-wage employment

Download the SUS (PDF)

How to citeAllan, B., Tay, L., & Sterling, M. (2017). The Subjective Underemployment Scale (SUS). Journal of Vocational Behavior, 99, 93–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.01.001

SETPOINT: A Dimensional Model of Vocational Interests (CABIN)

What it measures: vocational interests using the full SETPOINT framework and the Comprehensive Assessment of Basic Interests (CABIN).

Format: empirically validated 8-dimensional model · CABIN measures 41 basic interests hierarchically

The 8 SETPOINT dimensions

• Health Science
• Creative Expression
• Technology
• People
• Organization
• Influence
• Nature
• Things

Interests are structured hierarchically: specific work activities at the lowest level, basic interests at the intermediate level, and broad-band dimensions at the top.

Download the CABIN scale (PDF)

How to citeSu, R., Tay, L., Liao, H.-Y., Zhang, Q., & Rounds, J. (2019). Toward a dimensional model of vocational interests. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(5), 690–714. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000373

CAPTION: Taxonomy of Psychological Situation Characteristics

What it measures: the major dimensions of psychological situations, derived from the largest lexical analysis of situation characteristics at the time.

Format: 7-dimensional model · full- and short-form measures

Dimensions (CAPTION)

• Complexity
• Adversity
• Positive Valence
• Typicality
• Importance
• Humor
• Negative Valence

CAPTION integrates dimensions found across the existing literature into a single comprehensive taxonomy.

CAPTION scale — items & instructions (PDF)

How to citeParrigon, S., Woo, S. E., Tay, L., & Wang, T. (2017). CAPTION-ing the situation: A lexically derived taxonomy of psychological situation characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(4), 642–681. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000111

Comprehensive & Brief Inventories of Thriving (CIT & BIT)

What it measures: a broad array of psychological well-being constructs (“thriving”) that anticipate health outcomes.

Format: CIT = comprehensive assessment · BIT = 10-item brief screen

Coverage

• Subjective well-being
• Psychological well-being
• Relationships
• Engagement & mastery
• Meaning & optimism

The CIT supports comprehensive well-being assessment in research and clinical settings; the BIT offers a quick overview of core dimensions suitable for medical intake and screening.

CIT full instrument (PDF)BIT full instrument (PDF)

How to citeSu, R., Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2014). The development and validation of the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT) and the Brief Inventory of Thriving (BIT). Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 6, 251–279. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12027

A Practical Guide to IRT Measurement Equivalence Analysis

What it provides: a step-by-step guide to item response theory (IRT) measurement equivalence (ME) / differential item functioning (DIF) analysis.

Includes: overview · walkthrough · three worked illustrations (IRTPRO & Latent GOLD)

Walkthrough (PDF)Illustration 1Illustration 2Illustration 3

How to citeTay, L., Meade, A. W., & Cao, M. (2015). An overview and practical guide to IRT measurement equivalence analysis. Organizational Research Methods, 18(1), 3–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428114553062

A Framework for Psychometric Isomorphism (Multilevel Constructs)

What it provides: a conceptual and methodological framework for testing the validity of multilevel construct measures (isomorphism).

Includes: framework · analytic procedure · multilevel IRT & factor-analysis comparison tables

Analytic procedureIRT & FA item parametersMultilevel IRT modelsMultilevel FA models

How to citeTay, L., Woo, S. E., & Vermunt, J. K. (2014). A conceptual and methodological framework for psychometric isomorphism: Validation of multilevel construct measures. Organizational Research Methods, 17(1), 77–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428113517008