School climate has been linked with myriad positive student outcomes and the measurement of school climate is widely advocated at the national and state level. However, districts have little guidance about how to define and measure school climate. This study examines the psychometric properties of a district-developed school climate measure that was created in response to state policy pressure and an interest in student perceptions of school climate. Initial evaluation of the Meriden School Climate Survey–Student Version (MSCS-SV), a 38-item scale, indicates evidence of validity and reliability based on principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, test–retest reliability, and comprehensive assessment of internal consistency. Overall, results suggest that the MSCS-SV may be an adequate measure of student perceptions of a broad school climate construct, but more research is warranted.
AndersonC. S. (1982). The search for school climate: A review of the research. Review of Educational Research, 52, 368–420. doi:10.3102/00346543052003368
2.
AppletonJ. J.ChristensonS. L.FurlongM. J. (2008). Student engagement with school: Critical conceptual and methodological issues of the construct. Psychology in the Schools, 45, 369–386. doi:10.1002/pits
3.
BattistichV.SolomonD.KimD.WatsonM.SchapsE. (1995). Schools as communities, poverty levels of student populations, and students’ attitudes, motives, and performance: A multilevel analysis. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 627–658. doi:10.2307/1163326
4.
BearG. G.GaskinC.BlankJ.ChenF. F. (2011). Delaware School Climate Survey-student: Its factor structure, concurrent validity, and reliability. Journal of School Psychology, 49, 157–174. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2011.01.001
5.
BrandS.FelnerR.ShimM.SeitsingerA.DumasT. (2003). Middle school improvement and reform: Development and validation of a school-level assessment of climate, cultural pluralism, and school safety. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 570–588. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.95.3.570
6.
CliffordM.MenonR.GangiT.CondonC.HornungK. (2012). Measuring school climate for gauging principal performance: A review of the validity and reliability of publicly accessible measures. Retrieved from http://www.air.org/files/school_climate2.pdf
7.
CohenJ. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159.
8.
CohenJ.McCabeE. M.MichelliN. S.PickeralT. (2009). School climate: Research, policy, practice, and teacher education. Teachers College Record, 111, 180–213.
9.
CohenJ.PickeralT.McCloskeyM. (2009). Assessing school climate. The Education Digest, 74, 45–48.
10.
DempsterA. P.LairdN. M.RubinD. B. (1977). Maximum likelihood from incomplete data via the EM algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 39, 1–38.
11.
DuhachekA.IacobucciD. (2004). Alpha’s standard error (ASE): An accurate and precise confidence interval estimate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 792–808. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.89.5.792
12.
FredricksJ.McColskeyW.MeliJ.MordicaJ.MontrosseB.MooneyK. (2011). Measuring student engagement in upper elementary through high school: A description of 21 instruments (Issues & Answers Report, Regional Education Lab No. 098). Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/southeast/pdf/REL_2011098.pdf
13.
FurlongM. J.GreifJ. L.BatesM. P.WhippleA. D.JimenezT. C.MorrisonR. (2005). Development of the California School Climate and Safety Survey-Short Form. Psychology in the Schools, 42, 137–149. doi:10.1002/pits.20053
14.
GottfredsonG. D.GottfredsonD. C.PayneA. A.GottfredsonN. C. (2005). School climate predictor of school disorder: Results from a national study of delinquency in schools. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 42, 412–444. doi:10.1177/0022427804271931
15.
GuttmanL. (1945). A basis for analyzing test-retest reliability. Psychometrika, 10, 255–282. doi:10.1007/BF02288892
16.
HalpinA. W.CroftD. B. (1963). The organizational climate of schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
17.
HamburgerM. E.BasileK. C.VivoloA. M. (2011). Measuring bullying victimization, perpetration, and bystander experiences: A compendium of assessment tools. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Center for Disease Control, U.S. Department of Health & Human Service.
18.
HansonT. L.KimJ. O. (2007). Measuring resilience and youth development: The psychometric properties of the Healthy Kids Survey (Issues & Answers Report No. 034). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory West. Retrieved from http://www.ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/west/pdf/REL_2007034_sum.pdf
19.
HuL.BentlerP. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indices in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1–55. doi:10.1080/10705519909540118
20.
KennyD. A.McCoachD. B. (2003). Effect of the number of variables on measures of fit in structural equation modeling. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 10, 333–351. doi:10.1207/S15328007SEM1003_1
21.
KlineP. (2000). Handbook of psychological testing. New York, NY: Routledge.
22.
KlineR. B. (2005). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
23.
KupermincG. P.LeadbeaterB. J.BlattS. J. (2001). School social climate and individual differences in vulnerability to psychopathology among middle school students. Journal of School Psychology, 39, 141–159. doi:10.1016/S0022-4405(01)00059-0
24.
MatsunagaM. (2010). How to factor-analyze your data right: Do’s, don’ts and how-to’s. International Journal of Psychological Research, 3, 2011–2084.
25.
McDonaldR. P. (1999). Test theory: A unified treatment. Hillsdale, MI: Lawrence Erlbaum.
26.
NanselT. R.OverpeckM.PillaR. S.RuanW. J.Simons-MortonB.ScheidtP. (2001). Bullying behaviors among US youth: Prevalence and associations with psychosocial adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 2094–2100. doi:10.1001/jama.285.16.2094
27.
NathansonL.McCormickM.KempleJ. J.SypekL. (2013). Strengthening assessments of school climate: Lessons from the NYC School Survey. New York: Research Alliance for New York City Schools.
28.
National School Climate Council. (2007). The school climate challenge: Narrowing the gap between school climate research and school climate policy, practice guide-lines and teacher education policy. Retrieved from http://www.schoolclimate.org/climate/advocacy.php
PiscatelliJ.LeeC. (2011, July). State policies on school climate and bully prevention efforts: Challenges and opportunities for deepening state policy support for safe and civil schools. National School Climate Center. Retrieved from http://schoolclimate.org/climate/policy.php
31.
PreacherK. J.ZyphurM. J.ZhangZ. (2010). A general multilevel SEM framework for assessing multilevel mediation. Psychological Methods, 15, 209–233. doi:0.1037/a0020141
32.
R Development Core Team. (2008). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Software]. Available from http://cran.r-project.org/
33.
RevelleW. (1979). Hierarchical cluster-analysis and the internal structure of tests. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 14, 57–74. doi:10.1207/s15327906mbr1401_4
RevelleW.ZinbargR. E. (2009). Cofficient alpha, beta, omega, and the GLB: Comments on Sijtsma. Psychometrika, 74, 145–154. doi:10.1007/S11336-008-9102-Z
36.
SijtsmaK. (2009). On the use, the misuse, and the very limited usefulness of Cronbach’s alphas. Psychometrika, 74, 107–120. doi:10.1007/S11336-008-9101-0
37.
SteffgenG.RecchiaS.ViechtbauerW. (2013). The link between school climate and violence in school: A meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18, 30–309. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2012.12.001
38.
TagiuriR. (1968). The concept of organizational climate. In TagiuriR.LitwinG. H. (Eds.), Organizational climate: Exploration of a concept (pp. 11–35). Boston, MA: Harvard University.
39.
ThapaA.CohenJ.GuffeyS.Higgins-D’AlessandroA. (2013). A review of school climate research. Review of Educational Research, 83, 357–385. doi:10.3102/0034654313483907
40.
U.S. Department of Education. (2014). Guiding principles: A resource guide for improving school climate and discipline. Washington, DC: Author.
ZinbargR. E.RevelleW.YovelI.LiW. (2005). Cronbach’s α, Revelle’s β, and McDonald’s ωH: Their relations with each other and two alternative conceptualizations of reliability. Psychometrika, 70, 123–133. doi:10.1007/s11336-003-0974-7
43.
ZulligK. J.KoopmanT. M.PattonJ. M.UbbesV. A. (2010). School climate: Historical review, instrument development, and school assessment. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 28, 139–152. doi:10.1177/0734282909344205
