School Connectedness: Examining Measurement Invariance by Gender and Grade

Abstract

School connectedness plays a critical role in multiple aspects of child development. The purpose of this study was to operationalize school connectedness as a multidimensional construct and further assess whether this construct was measured similarly across gender and grade level among a sample of upper elementary school children (age M = 9.57; N = 361) in the United States. Based on prior scholarship, we identified and validated three key elements of school connectedness: school attachment, teacher attachment, and school safety. The results of multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showed that these three elements were measured comparably across gender and grade (Grades 3, 4, and 5). As measurement invariances by gender and grade were supported, we further examined differences in latent means among these groups and found that there were no differences in the three elements of school connectedness by gender; fourth graders had lower school attachment than third graders.