Re-Examining Measurement Invariance of School Climate Surveys Across Race/Ethnicity

Abstract

Educators commonly use school climate survey scores to inform and evaluate interventions for equitably improving learning and reducing educational disparities. Unfortunately, validity evidence to support these (and other) score uses often falls short. In response, Whitehouse et al. proposed a collaborative, two-part validity testing framework for research-practice teams to gather evidence on school climate instruments to substantiate score interpretations and uses to promote equitable school environments. This study extends their work by including approaches to gather evidence on content and predictive validity of obtained scores, beyond an instrument’s internal structure, and using the alignment method to assess measurement invariance across student racial/ethnic groups. We demonstrate the procedure on a school climate survey developed by a large, urban U.S. public school district using data obtained on a sample of 6,423 Black and White middle school students. Results suggest that our expanded framework offers a more extensive, empirically based approach to gathering validity evidence on locally developed school climate measures. We discuss implications, limitations, and future directions for the development and use of school climate measures for decision-making.