Gratitude pertains to “a generalized tendency to recognize and respond with grateful emotion to the roles of other people’s benevolence in the positive experiences and outcomes that one obtains” (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, Reference McCullough, Emmons and Tsang2002, p. 112). To assess individual differences in gratitude, McCullough et al. (Reference McCullough, Emmons and Tsang2002) developed the Gratitude Questionnaire-Six Item Form (GQ-6), a six-item self-report measure of gratitude. The authors found that GQ-6 yielded excellent psychometric properties across university and adult samples. Other studies have found that the scores from GQ-6 were valid and reliable in a sample American middle to high school students (Froh et al., Reference Froh, Fan, Emmons, Bono, Huebner and Watkins2011b) and adult samples (Kashdan, Mishra, Breen, & Froh, Reference Kashdan, Mishra, Breen and Froh2009).

Previous research indicates that gratitude is associated with a wide range of positive psychological outcomes (see Renshaw & Steeves, Reference Renshaw and Steeves2016 for a review). Gratitude is linked to higher positive affect (McCullough et al., Reference McCullough, Emmons and Tsang2002) and life satisfaction (Datu, Reference Datu2014; Datu & Mateo, Reference Datu and Mateo2015; Froh, Emmons, Card, Bono, & Wilson, 2011; McCullough et al., Reference McCullough, Emmons and Tsang2002; Wood, Joseph, & Maltby, Reference Wood, Joseph and Maltby2008; 2009). Conversely, gratitude is associated with lower depression (Froh et al., 2011a; Froh et al., Reference Froh, Fan, Emmons, Bono, Huebner and Watkins2011b; McCullough et al., Reference McCullough, Emmons and Tsang2002), negative affect (Emmons & McCullough, Reference Emmons and McCullough2003; Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, Reference Froh, Sefick and Emmons2008) and stress (McCullough et al., Reference McCullough, Emmons and Tsang2002; Wood, Maltby, Gillett, Linley, & Joseph, Reference Wood, Joseph and Maltby2008). To explore the beneficial value of gratitude in the educational context, Froh et al. (Reference Froh, Emmons, Card, Bono and Wilson2011a) assessed the association of gratitude with academic outcomes and found that grateful students are likely to get higher grades and achieve greater well-being. These findings point to the importance of giving attention to non-academic skills such as gratitude to improve students’ well-being which may also contribute to their academic performance.

The broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, Reference Fredrickson2001) is one of the potential frameworks that can explain why gratitude may be associated with optimal psychological outcomes. The model argues that positive emotional states (i.e., feeling grateful) are valuable because they enable broadening of thought-action repertoires that are essential in acquiring durable physical, social, and psychological resources. As feeling grateful involves the appreciation of relevant things, people, or events, it is likely that this affective state may foster a positive mindset that can catalyze durable resources (i.e., resilience and physical health). In the current study, we operationalized gratitude as a positive affective state that may build important educational resources like academic achievement and motivation.

Despite the bulk of evidence regarding the theoretical value of the gratitude construct, limited research has been done to evaluate the psychometric properties of GQ-6. Limited research was also conducted that assessed the linkage of gratitude to academic outcomes especially in non-Western and collectivist settings (i.e., Philippines). Previous studies primarily focused on GQ-6’s factor structure and its association with well-being outcomes (i.e., mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, and Filipino samples; Chen, Chen, Kee, & Tsai, Reference Chen, Chen, Kee and Tsai2009; Chen & Kee, Reference Chen and Kee2008; Datu, Reference Datu2014; Datu & Mateo, Reference Datu and Mateo2015; Zeng, Ling, Huebner, He, & Lei, Reference Zeng, Ling, Huebner, He and Lei2017).

Of these studies, only the studies of Chen et al. (Reference Chen, Chen, Kee and Tsai2009) and Zeng et al. (Reference Zeng, Ling, Huebner, He and Lei2017) have examined the validity and reliability of the GQ-6 among Taiwanese undergraduate students and Chinese middle school students respectively. Contrary to what has been found in the existing literature, Chen et al. (Reference Chen, Chen, Kee and Tsai2009) shows that the 5-item version of the gratitude questionnaire (GQ-5) yielded more superior psychometric properties (CFI = .99; SRMR = .02; RMSEA = .07) than the original 6-item version of the scale. In particular, item no. 6 (“Long amounts of time can go by before I feel grateful to something or someone”) was removed because the scores from the 6-item scale yielded poor fit indices (e.g., Comparative Fit Index or CFI = .94; Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual or SRMR = .07; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation or RMSEA = .12). Furthermore, Zeng et al. (Reference Zeng, Ling, Huebner, He and Lei2017) have offered an additional evidence about the psychometric validity, reliability, and gender invariance of GQ-5 in a sample of Chinese middle school students. The authors have also shown that gratitude was associated with higher extent of hope and students’ life satisfaction.

Similarly, Langer, Ulloa, Aguilar-Parra, Araya-Véliz, and Brito (Reference Langer, Ulloa, Aguilar-Parra, Araya-Véliz and Brito2016) have examined the psychometric properties of the GQ-6 and GQ-5. Specifically, in a sample of Chilean adult and adolescents, they have found that the scores from the GQ-5 had better fit than the GQ-6. They have also demonstrated that gratitude is linked to lower levels of depression and higher levels of subjective happiness.

Furthermore, as previous studies concentrated on exploring the association of gratitude with school adjustment and well-being outcomes, Renshaw and Steeves (Reference Renshaw and Steeves2016) point out that “there is little evidence to suggest that gratitude in youth has practically meaningful associations with performance-based or informant-rated variables that educators and school psychologists tend to value” (p. 300). Although Froh et al. (Reference Froh, Fan, Emmons, Bono, Huebner and Watkins2011b) have assessed the relationship between gratitude and academic outcomes in the Western context, the study did not explicitly examine the factorial validity of the gratitude questionnaire. Clearly, more research is needed to assess the linkage of gratitude to relevant educational outcomes.

Therefore, the primary objective of the study was to assess the psychometric properties and gender invariance of GQ-6 through a construct validation approach (Martin, Reference Martin2007) among Filipino secondary school students. This validation technique involves examining the within-network validity (through confirmatory factor analyses and reliability analyses) and between-network validity (exploring the correlation of gratitude with academic motivation and achievement) of the GQ-6. Unlike previous validation studies that focused on examining how gratitude was related to well-being indices to provide evidence about the scale’s criterion related validity (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Chen, Kee and Tsai2009; Langer et al., Reference Langer, Ulloa, Aguilar-Parra, Araya-Véliz and Brito2016), our study assessed the association of gratitude with amotivation, controlled, and autonomous motivation. Amotivation refers to lack or absence of motivation to engage in academic task (Deci & Ryan, Reference Deci and Ryan2000). Controlled motivation pertains to one’s drive to perform academic activities due to extrinsic reasons such as getting external incentives, avoiding punishment, or feeling guilt for not doing a specific task (Shahar, Henrich, Blatt, Ryan, & Little, Reference Shahar, Henrich, Blatt, Ryan and Little2003). Autonomous motivation refers to a drive to accomplish academic tasks for the sake of having personal fulfillment (Shahar et al., Reference Shahar, Henrich, Blatt, Ryan and Little2003).

We hypothesized that gratitude would be positively associated with autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and academic achievement because the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, Reference Fredrickson2001) argues that positive affective states like feeling grateful may not only broaden mindsets but will also promote approach-related behaviors and durable resources. Alternatively, gratitude would be negatively linked to amotivation.

Results

A review of the item descriptive statistics showed that the skewness and kurtosis values did not exceed 2 and 7, indications that there were no severe violations of normality (Finney & DiStefano, Reference Finney, DiStefano, Hancock and Mueller2006). Even the Mahalanobis distance values indicate absence of multivariate outliers. Hence, we performed confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) through maximum likelihood estimation approach since the preliminary analyses suggest that the dataset appears to be normally distributed.

To assess the within-network validity of the GQ-6, we conducted separate CFA across our randomly divided exploratory (n = 192), cross-validation (n = 191), and total (n = 383) samples (See Table 1). Results of CFA in the 6-item version of the GQ-6 (Model 1) in the exploratory sample showed low fit: χ² = 52.49, df = 9, p < .001, CFI = .89, GFI = .92, TLI = .81, and RMSEA = .16 (.12 – .20). The alternative model (Model 2) after removing item 6 (“Long amounts of time can go by before I feel grateful to something or someone.”) yielded better fit than the hypothesized model: χ² = 14.28, df = 5, p < .001, CFI = .97, GFI = .97, TLI = .93, and RMSEA = .08 (.04 – .16). Hence, we adopted the alternative model and tested it to our total sample. The results of CFA for the total sample (Model 3; See Figure 1) showed a good fit: χ² = 20.70, df = 5, p < .001, CFI = .98, GFI = .98, TLI = .95, and RMSEA = .08 (.05 – .13). The fit indices of the abovementioned models are shown in Table 1. All the items significantly loaded at p < .001.

Table 1.

Confirmatory factor analyses of the GQ6

Figure 1.

Final measurement model of gratitude.

Multi-group CFA was conducted to examine gender invariance of Model 2 in the current sample. The results demonstrated the scores from the 5-item version of the gratitude questionnaire exhibited configural, metric, scalar, and residual variance invariance as the differences in RMSEA (∆RMSEA) were less than .01 (See Table 2).

Table 2.

Invariance of the gratitude across gender

The scale had also a moderate Cronbach’s reliability coefficient (α = .74). Results of descriptive statistical and reliability analyses are shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Descriptive statistics and reliability coefficients of the scales

In terms of between-network construct validity, the results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that gratitude was associated with higher degree of autonomous motivation β = .73, p < .001, controlled motivation β = .28, p < .001, and academic achievement β = .43, p < .001 even after controlling for age, gender, and year level (See Table 4). Conversely, gratitude was linked to lower levels of amotivation β = –.51, p < .001 after controlling for the aforementioned demographic variables. These findings indicate that gratitude accounted for 7.84% to 53.29% of the variance in academic achievement and motivation. Conversion of the coefficients of determination values to Cohen’s d showed that the effect sizes between gratitude and academic outcomes ranged from d = .58 to d = 2.14. The magnitude of effect sizes may be interpreted as medium to large effects with reference to the criteria of Cohen (Reference Cohen1988).

Table 4.

Gratitude as a predictor of academic motivation and achievement

* *p < .01, *** p < .001.