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Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students

UWES-S
educationpsychologyFree for research use

Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no license fee. Cite the original publication.

A student version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale that measures engagement with one's studies through vigor, dedication, and absorption.

Items
17
Response format
7-point frequency scale (0-6)
Version
1.0
Subscales
3

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Study engagement was measured with the 17-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student version (UWES-S; Schaufeli et al., 2002), which yields Vigor, Dedication, and Absorption scores rated from 0 (never) to 6 (always).

Citing this in a methods section? See the APA 7 guide (Author–date citations for psychology and the social sciences). Or compare all six citation styles.

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Reliability & validation

Notes
2002 study, Table 3 (reported alongside the revised 14-item model): Vigor .79/.79/.65, Dedication .85/.86/.77, Absorption .65/.73/.67 (Spain/Portugal/Netherlands). The authors' UWES manual reports .63, .81, and .72 for the 17-item version in Dutch students (N = 527), and .84 for the 9-item short form (UWES-S-9).
Validation population
University students in Spain (n = 621), Portugal (n = 723), and the Netherlands (n = 309) (Schaufeli et al., 2002)
Cronbach's α
0.65–0.86

Subscales

VigorDedicationAbsorption

Response anchors

Never · Almost never · Rarely · Sometimes · Often · Very often · Always

Known limitations

In the original study, the three-factor model fit only after three weak items were removed (leaving 14), and the subscales were highly intercorrelated. The authors' manual recommends the 9-item short version (UWES-S-9) over the 17-item version.

Original citation

Schaufeli, W. B., Martínez, I. M., Marques Pinto, A., Salanova, M., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). Burnout and engagement in university students: A cross-national study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 464-481.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022102033005003

Questions researchers ask

What does the UWES-S measure?

A student version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale that measures engagement with one's studies through vigor, dedication, and absorption.

How many items does the UWES-S have?

The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-S) has 17 items across 3 subscales: Vigor, Dedication, Absorption.

Is the UWES-S free to use?

The UWES-S is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the UWES-S reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.65–0.86. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the UWES-S, and how do I cite it?

Schaufeli, W. B., Martínez, I. M., Marques Pinto, A., Salanova, M., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). Burnout and engagement in university students: A cross-national study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 464-481. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022102033005003

Or track new research mentioning UWES-S as it publishes

Related scales

UWES-9Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (short version)SCEQStudent Course Engagement QuestionnaireWFC/FWCWork-Family Conflict and Family-Work Conflict ScalesAEQAchievement Emotions QuestionnaireAGQ-RAchievement Goal Questionnaire-RevisedAHSAdult Dispositional Hope Scale

Library entry verified November 2026. Metadata is provided for reference. Questionnaires are built in Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing, and can be taken to Qualtrics, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms, with their CSV responses brought back for scoring.