The concept of school climate has been an important variable in research on quality of school life and student learning. One of the challenges in such a research effort is to develop instruments that could effectively and efficiently measure the construct. The purpose of the current study was to examine the factor structure and reliability of an abbreviated version of the Developmental Study Center’s School Climate Survey. Based on data from a comprehensive character education project implemented in an urban school district in 2007 (n = 5,914), 2008 (n = 5,874) and 2009 (n = 5,149), results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) revealed a seven-factor structure across 3 years, indicating a stable factor structure of the abbreviated form. The scales in the abbreviated form demonstrated similar reliability to those of the original form.
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