Abstract
Sense of community in the school has been associated with a range of important outcomes for students. However, there are currently no standard definitions of sense of community in the school with corresponding measures with established psychometric properties. To fill this gap, the main aim of the present study was to propose a model of sense of community in the school, its operationalization and to examine its key psychometric properties (factorial structure, reliability, differential item functioning, differential test functioning of the scale and discriminant, convergent, and criterion validity). Participants were 1,076 students from 22 public middle schools and 724 students from 22 public high schools located in the Italian city of Genoa and its province. To test the dimensionality of the scale, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis under the Item Response Theory paradigm. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed three dimensions: Membership, Emotional connection, and Opportunities. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the bifactor model exhibited the largest improvement in fit. Cronbach’s alpha, omega total, and omega hierarchical indicated a good reliability for the measure. Internal consistency was satisfactory, considering Cronbach’s alpha and omega. Analysis of differential item/test functioning of the scale showed that girls and boys as well as students attending middle school and those attending high school responded in largely similar ways to the measure. Finally, the instrument demonstrated good discriminant, convergent, and criterion validity. Together, these findings indicate that our theory driven model of sense of community in the school is valid and that the instrument is a reliable measure for assessing sense of community in the school.
Highlights
Many researchers have used the concept of sense of community to describe the psychological aspects of physical and social contexts that satisfy the need of belonging (Fisher et al, 2002)
Since criterion validity refers to the ability of a measure to predict the outcome of interest, in the present study we focus on the relationship between sense of community in the school and well-being
The Akaike information criterion (AIC), the AICc, the Bayesian information criterion (BIC), and the Size Adjusted BIC (SABIC) decreased when moving to the three-dimensional model and increased when moving to the four-dimensional model
Summary
Many researchers have used the concept of sense of community to describe the psychological aspects of physical and social contexts that satisfy the need of belonging (Fisher et al, 2002). This definition in principle can apply to school, that can be considered as a primary physical and social context for young people, and can be adapted as follows: it refers to feeling of belonging to the. Scale of Sense of Community in the School school as a community, perception of emotional connection and bonds with other students, and the feeling that personal needs are satisfied through such membership. Concerning membership, McMillan and Chavis (1986) argue that “membership has boundaries; this means that there are people who belong and people who do not. Previous investigations revealed that psychological sense of community in the school is associated with democratic school climate (Vieno et al, 2005), lower levels of drug use and delinquent behavior (Battistich and Hom, 1997), lower levels of bullying behaviors (Vieno et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2014), academic achievement (Battistich et al, 1995; Wang et al, 2014), engagement in school activities and role clarity (Royal and Rossi, 1996), social support (Pretty et al, 1996; Vieno et al, 2007), quality of peer interactions (Hallinan et al, 2008), social skills (Battistich et al, 1995), lower levels of loneliness (Pretty et al, 1994, 1996), self-efficacy (Vieno et al, 2007), and well-being (Pretty et al, 1996; Royal and Rossi, 1996; Vieno et al, 2007, 2013)
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