Efficient yellow–green electroluminescence emission at λ max =530nm with CIE coordinates x=0.3913, y=0.4947 was obtained with organic light-emitting devices based on tris(2-methyl-8-quinolinolate) scandium (1). The device with the configuration of indium tin oxide/N,N′-bis(3-methylphenyl)-N,N′-diphenylbenzidine/1/Yb exhibits current efficiency of 3.1cd/A and power efficiency of 1.8lm/W at a luminance of 100cd/m 2 . The DFT calculations demonstrate that structural changes of the scandium complex 1 influence the electroluminescence spectrum, the better agreement with experimental data being achieved when monodentate ligands are taken into consideration.