Internal Structure, Reliability and Invariance across Gender Using the Multidimensional School Climate Scale PACE-33

Abstract

<jats:p>The school climate is one of the keys to the efficiency, quality and improvement of the school. For this reason, numerous studies have highlighted the importance of evaluating this construct. However, there is still no measure in Spanish that evaluates the most relevant aspects of school climate in a valid and reliable way. This paper has two main objectives that try to overcome this limitation: (1) to analyse the internal structure and internal consistency reliability of the Students’ Perception of School Climate scale (escala Percepción del Alumnado sobre el Clima Escolar—PACE-33); and (2) examine its measurement and structural invariance across men and women. This study involved 1180 adolescents (mean age, Mage = 15.37 years; standard deviation, SD = 1.90) selected by means of incidental sampling. The results obtained show that, among the models tested, the one corresponding to nine correlated factors shows the best adjustment to the data; furthermore, they note that it presents adequate internal consistency indices. The results also prove that this model is equivalent in men and women. These data support that the PACE-33 is a valid and reliable measure to assess the adolescents’ perception of the main aspects of the school climate.</jats:p>

School Climate and Perceived Academic Performance: Direct or Resilience-Mediated Relationship?

“…This scale offers 5 response options ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree) and comprises 33 items (29 direct and 4 inverse) grouped into nine subscales: physical safety (e.g., "At my school there are students who get into fights"); rules (e.g., "My school has clear rules"); student-teacher relationships (e.g., "At my school there are teachers whom I can talk to about any problems I may be having"); peer relationships (e.g., "I feel comfortable talking to my classmates about my problems"); group cohesion (e.g., "Everyone in my class helps and looks after each other"); environmental-structural aspects (e.g., "My classroom is well lit"); teachers' ability to motivate (e.g., "Our teachers manage to get us interested in classwork"); teachers' expectations (e.g., "Our teachers expect us to work hard"); and methodological resources (e.g., "I think the materials we use in class are interesting"). The confirmatory factor analysis carried out on this instrument reveals that the underlying factor structure is the one of nine correlated factors [25]. In the present study, the nine subscales had adequate internal consistency reliability coefficients: physical safety (α = 0.832, ω = 0.833, ρ = 0.838), rules (α = 0.833, ω = 0.828, ρ = 0.829), student-teacher relationships (α = 0.828, ω = 0.818, ρ = 0.819), peer relationships (α = 0.864, ω = 0.865, ρ = 0.865), group cohesion (α = 0.853, ω = 0.853, ρ = 0.854), environmental-structural aspects (α = 0.701, ω = 0.698, ρ = 0.720), teachers' ability to motivate (α = 0.913, ω = 0.908, ρ = 0.908), teachers' expectations (α = 0.790, ω = 0.798, ρ = 0.806) and methodological resources (α = 0.802, ω = 0.806, ρ = 0.808).…”

“…School climate, understood as students' perception of the climate at their school, was assessed using the PACE-33 scale [24,25]. This scale offers 5 response options ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree) and comprises 33 items (29 direct and 4 inverse) grouped into nine subscales: physical safety (e.g., "At my school there are students who get into fights"); rules (e.g., "My school has clear rules"); student-teacher relationships (e.g., "At my school there are teachers whom I can talk to about any problems I may be having"); peer relationships (e.g., "I feel comfortable talking to my classmates about my problems"); group cohesion (e.g., "Everyone in my class helps and looks after each other"); environmental-structural aspects (e.g., "My classroom is well lit"); teachers' ability to motivate (e.g., "Our teachers manage to get us interested in classwork"); teachers' expectations (e.g., "Our teachers expect us to work hard"); and methodological resources (e.g., "I think the materials we use in class are interesting").…”

Systematic and evaluative review of school climate instruments for students, teachers, and parents

“…Only six instruments met the highest score for this criterion of which two were original versions (What's Happening in This School? [WHITS; J. Aldridge & Ala'I, 2013] and Students' Perception of the School Climate [PACE; Escalante, Palacios, et al, 2020]) and the rest were revised versions (My Class Inventory‐Short Form [MCI‐SF, Sink & Spencer, 2005]; School Climate and School Identification Measure‐Student [SCASIM‐St, Gálvez‐Nieto et al, 2020]; Students' Perception of the School Climate [PACE‐33, Escalante, Goñi, et al, 2020]; and Inventory of School Climate‐Student [ISC‐S, Acun‐ Kapıkıran & Kapıkıran, 2011]).…”

Development of Web-Based Pencak Silat Double Category Training Media

“…The total number of estimated test subjects suitable for the research was not known with certainty so the researcher applied an incidental sampling technique (Sugiyono, 2015). Incidental sampling is one of the sampling techniques chosen by chance with the conditions that meet to be used as a research subject (Mateos, et al, 2020). The initial research used a survey technique of 49 respondents consisting of 30 artistic category athletes and 19 coaches.…”