Psychometric analysis of the Tourism Wellbeing Scale (TWS): a multidisciplinary approach

Abstract

This paper analyses the Tourism Wellbeing Scale, a new measure in the tourism sector built from Positive Psychology variables: wellbeing, creativity, optimism, and spirituality. It empathizes the importance of multidisciplinary work and thus it focuses on a psychological approach to understand wellbeing in tourism. The empirical research used Exploratory Factor Analysis (n=429) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n=428). Reliability through Cronbach' Alpha was .874 and evidence of convergent validity was found with the Creative personality scale-short form, Global wellbeing scale, optimism scale, and spirituality scale. A final 8-item structure, with a one-factor solution and confirmatory analysis with: a) Normed Chi-squared (χ2/df) =1.076; b) Root Mean Square Residual (RMR) =.041; c) Goodness of Fit (GFI) =.992; d) Adjusted Goodness of Fit (AGFI) =.977; e) Comparative Fit Index (CFI) =.999; and f) the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) =.013 was obtained. Overall, this instrument has an adequate goodness-of-fit and acceptable psychometric quality to be used in the field. This study is an innovation in bringing a new instrument to the field based on psychological principles with the potential to help stakeholders in the development of new marketing products where wellbeing can be a major turn-point for the tourism industry.

Atas do X Simpósio Nacional de Investigação em Psicologia, Universidade da Madeira, 2019

“…Overall it also measures wellbeing through its one-factor dimension which is the sum of all eight items. The reliability of the original study was .874 (Garcês et al, 2020). The current research internal consistency of this measure was .848.…”

“…This measure was built to evaluate tourists' wellbeing through a eudemonic view, based on Positive Psychology principles. The first version had 30 items (Garcês et al, 2018a) but later on, it was reduced to eight items after exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (Garcês et al, 2020). This reduction allowed to have a more concise measure and, hopefully, avoid social desirability and boredom that could skew results.…”

“…In the tourism wellbeing scale, results showed M=40.29 and a SD of 9.39. In the validation study, average wellbeing runs from 39 to 44 points (Garcês et al, 2020), meaning that the current study also reports average wellbeing scores.…”

Meaning in Life and Materialism as Mediators of the Relationship Between Dispositional Awe and Tourist Eudaimonic Well-Being

“…Tourist eudaimonic well-being was assessed via the Tourism Wellbeing Scale (Garcês et al, 2020). The instrument aims to evaluate eudaimonic well-being in a tourism setting.…”

Dark Tourists: Profile, Practices, Motivations and Wellbeing

“…The Tourism Wellbeing Scale (TWS) was developed by [48] Garcês et al (2018 [49]); it aims to evaluate tourism wellbeing in each destination, having been built from positive psychology variables, namely, wellbeing, creativity, optimism, and spirituality. It is a unifactorial scale with eight items.…”