single-item · dataset v0.9.0

ONS-4 item: happiness yesterday

Licence verified: 2026-07-12 · literature last reviewed: 2026-09-01 · grades last confirmed: 2026-09-03 · rubric v1.6

Who graded this. Every grade in this registry was assigned by one rater employed by the steward (1 rater, 0 independent), with AI assistance in literature retrieval and drafting. Grades and statuses are single-rater and frozen from first publication; they will not move until two named psychometric raters who are not employees of the steward have joined. Until then, automated sweeps add citations and flag cells for review; corrections of fact are made in public; no grade changes. Why, and how to volunteer.

An item record of the ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions item set. Graded evidence is held at the set level.

Identity

Version: Four questions as introduced by the UK Office for National Statistics in the Annual Population Survey in 2011; each item uses an 11-point 0 to 10 response scale. The wording has been stable since introduction, with ONS relabelling the set as 'personal well-being' following public focus groups in 2013.

Structure: 1 item, administered and reported on its own 0 to 10 scale (no composite is formed by ONS).

Original citation: Office for National Statistics (2011). Four personal well-being questions introduced in the Annual Population Survey. No primary journal article; the measure is defined and disseminated in ONS technical guidance and described in Dolan P, Metcalfe R (2012) Measuring Subjective Wellbeing: Recommendations on Measures for use by National Governments. Journal of Social Policy. DOI 10.1017/s0047279411000833

Steward / publisher: UK Office for National Statistics (ONS)

openopen licence for employer or vendor use. Open Government Licence v3.0; use encouraged by the steward. (inherited from the parent item set.)
Licence status (verified 2026-07-12): CONFIRMED. ONS states the four personal well-being questions are part of the government harmonised standards and 'they are freely available to others and their use is encouraged'. All ONS website content is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (Crown copyright). No fee, no registration; open status attaches to the original ONS wording and 0-to-10 scale, not to modified derivatives.
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/methodologies/surveysusingthe4officefornationalstatisticspersonalwellbeingquestions (use encouraged; freely available) and OGL v3.0 site-wide footer; corroborated at https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/personal-well-being/
Steward page as read, Internet Archive: archived copy 1 · archived copy 2
The registry records the licence class and the steward's page, never a price: fees change without notice and the archived page is the record of what was read.

Constructs claimed

Positive affect: happiness felt yesterday, self-rated 0 to 10.

In the question bank: Happiness yesterday

Relations to other records

item of ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions. One of the four ONS personal wellbeing questions as fielded and documented by the Office for National Statistics (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/methodologies/surveysusingthe4officefornationalstatisticspersonalwellbeingquestions).

A relation is published fact about the literature, with the study it rests on. It never says which form an implementer should use.

Evidence

Structural validity Not applicable (category difference)untestedevidence form: canonical

absence type: category-error the property does not apply to this construct

state: not_applicable · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03

Not applicable at item level: this is a single item, so internal consistency and factor structure are category errors rather than gaps (schema v0.2 rule 4).

Convergent and discriminant validity Lowthinevidence form: parent

general inherited from the parent record: the instrument is fielded on general populations; the cited studies describe no further sample

Grade and flag inherited from the parent record ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions; the evidence is the parent's.

state: assessed · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03 · under rubric v1.1: indirectness direct → general (re-read before first publication, correction C-0005)

Evidence for this property is held at the item-set level and is not duplicated here; see the ONS-4 parent record.

Criterion validity: reference standard Very lowuntestedevidence form: parent

indirect inherited from the parent record: adult cohort and older adults; no working-adult or general-population sample described (flag basis: Finnish cohort; older adults)

Grade and flag inherited from the parent record ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions; the evidence is the parent's.

state: assessed · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03

Evidence for this property is held at the item-set level and is not duplicated here; see the ONS-4 parent record.

Criterion validity: organisational Absent (searched; none found in the sweep to date)untestedevidence form: parent

absence type: population-general searched; none found in the sweep to date

Grade and flag inherited from the parent record ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions; the evidence is the parent's.

state: assessed_absent · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03

Evidence for this property is held at the item-set level and is not duplicated here; see the ONS-4 parent record.

Internal consistency Not applicable (category difference)untestedevidence form: canonical

absence type: category-error the property does not apply to this construct

state: not_applicable · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03

Not applicable at item level: this is a single item, so internal consistency and factor structure are category errors rather than gaps (schema v0.2 rule 4).

Test-retest reliability Absent (searched; none found in the sweep to date)untestedevidence form: parent

absence type: population-general searched; none found in the sweep to date

Grade and flag inherited from the parent record ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions; the evidence is the parent's.

state: assessed_absent · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03

Evidence for this property is held at the item-set level and is not duplicated here; see the ONS-4 parent record.

Measurement invariance Not applicable (category difference)untestedevidence form: canonical

absence type: category-error the property does not apply to this construct

state: not_applicable · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03 · under rubric v1.2: grade Absent → Not-applicable; evidence form parent → canonical; evidence state assessed_absent → not_applicable; absence type population-general → category-error (re-read before first publication, correction C-0006)

Not applicable at item level: measurement invariance is a property of an item set; a single item has no item set to test. The invariance evidence for the four items together is held on the ONS-4 parent record.

Responsiveness and MIC Absent (searched; none found in the sweep to date)untestedevidence form: parent

absence type: population-general searched; none found in the sweep to date

Grade and flag inherited from the parent record ONS-4 personal wellbeing questions; the evidence is the parent's.

state: assessed_absent · rubric v1.6 · literature as of 2026-09-01 · grade confirmed 2026-09-03

Evidence for this property is held at the item-set level and is not duplicated here; see the ONS-4 parent record.

Populations, languages and norms

Evidence for this property is held at the item-set level and is not duplicated here; see the ONS-4 parent record.

Record notes

Created 2026-07-12 by the ONS-4 item split (schema v0.2 rule 4). Graded evidence lives on the ONS-4 parent record; this item record exists so the set's items are first-class and cross-linked one-to-one with the question bank.