The brief sense of community scale: Testing dimensionality and measurement invariance by gender among Hispanic/Latinx youth

Abstract

Psychological sense of community is defined as feelings of belongingness and a shared belief that community members will meet one another's needs. Psychological sense of community has four dimensions: membership, influence, needs fulfillment, and emotional connection. In this study, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the first and second-order factor structure of the brief sense of community scale (BSCS) between male and female Hispanic/ Latinx adolescents from an urban community (N = 947). To help validate the BSCS model, the second-order factor model was tested with regression to predict the measures of intrapersonal psychological empowerment and ethnic identity, as constructs conceptually related to psychological sense of community. Findings support that: (1) psychological sense of community can be measured through the BSCS and as a fourfactor model among Hispanic/Latinx youth, supporting McMillan and Chavis's (1986) original theoretical discussions;(2) while no differences between genders were present at the model-level, there was path-specific variation; and (3) intrapersonal psychological empowerment and ethnic identity were associated with psychological sense of community.

A latent profile analysis of psychological sense of community and ethnic identity among racial–ethnic minority young adults from the southwestern United States

“…The BSCS measures dimensions specific to McMillan and Chavis's (1986) Sense of Community Theory: Needs Fulfillment, Membership, Influence , and Emotional Connection . This measure has been validated among both youth (Lardier Jr., Reid, et al, 2018; Lardier Jr. et al, 2021) and adult samples (Peterson et al, 2008). Recent studies have assessed the dimensionality and measurement invariance between Hispanic male and female adolescents (Lardier Jr. et al, 2021), as well as Black girls and continued to show strong reliability and validity (Opara et al, 2021).…”

“…The measurement and examination of psychological sense of community has not generally accounted for BIPOC group identities or examined this construct alongside conceptually related variables including ethnic identity (Lardier, 2018; Lardier Jr. et al, 2021; Townley et al, 2011). Yet, there are several studies that have linked psychological sense of community with constructs including ethnic identity, which are important to human development.…”

“…These constructs have been independently associated with both civic engagement and empowerment among young adults (Lardier, 2018). And while there is a robust scholarship examining ethnic identity among BIPOC, less research has examined psychological sense of community among these groups (Lardier et al, 2020a(Lardier et al, , 2020bLardier Jr. et al, 2021;Ramos-Vidal et al, 2020). Not knowing the extent to which psychological sense of community manifests among BIPOC, when considered alongside ethnic identity, is problematic for the existing research, as well as programmatic and community work with these groups.…”

Measurement invariance of the Brief Sense of Community Scale across non‐Hispanic, Black and Hispanic college students

“…For example, researchers have validated the BSCS from populations as diverse as German military personnel (Wombacher et al, 2010) and adults participating in a Puerto Rican musical community (Rivera-Segarra et al, 2016). No study, to our knowledge, has validated the BSCS in a university setting, and only two studies, thus far, have validated this scale with youth of color (i.e., Lardier et al, 2018Lardier et al, , 2021. Lardier et al (2018) examined the BSCS among non-Hispanic, Black and Hispanic adolescents in an urban setting.…”

“…However, demands for a more valid and brief measure (Chipuer & Pretty, 1999;Long & Perkins, 2003) resulted in the development of the Brief Sense of Community Scale (BSCS; Peterson et al, 2008). The BSCS has been validated across various populations and settings (e.g., Hombrados-Mendieta et al, 2013;Townley et al, 2011;Wombacher et al, 2010), and more recently with youth of color (Lardier et al, 2018(Lardier et al, , 2021. Despite the increased validation studies, measurement equivalence of the BSCS across non-Hispanic, Blacks and Hispanics has not yet been assessed.…”