The Simple School Belonging Scale: Working Toward a Unidimensional Measure of Student Belonging

ABSTRACT

Research focused on student belonging has sometimes used available measures in a unidimensional way despite evidence of multidimensionality in these scales. This study introduces a new unidimensional measure of school belonging that is psychometrically robust with preliminary evidence of construct validity that we call the Simple School Belonging Scale (SSBS).

KEYWORDS:

• Confirmatory factor analysis
• exploratory factor analysis
• item response theory
• psychosocial development

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erin Feinauer Whiting

Erin Feinauer Whiting is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University. Her research focuses on understanding and alleviating social inequality including a focus on improving school community and organization for the inclusion of all students.

Kimberlee C. Everson

Kimberlee C. Everson is an assistant professor of quantitative methods at Western Kentucky University. Her research focuses on value-added modeling and statistical methods.

Erika Feinauer

Erika Feinauer is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University. Her research focuses on literacy outcomes and the psycho-social well-being of language minority students.