Validation of the Spanish Version of the Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) Scale in Chilean Adolescents and Its Association with School-Related Outcomes and Substance Use

Abstract

School membership appears to be an important factor in explaining the relationship between students and schools, including school staff. School membership is associated with several school-related outcomes, such as academic performance and expectations. Most studies on school membership have been conducted in developed countries. The Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale (18 items: 13 positively worded items, 5 negatively worded items) has been widely used to measure this construct, but no studies regarding its validity and reliability have been conducted in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. This study investigates the psychometric properties, factor structure and reliability of this scale in a sample of 1250 early adolescents in Chile. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provide evidence of an excellent fit for a one-factor solution after removing the negatively worded items. The internal consistency of this new abbreviated version was 0.92. The association analyses demonstrated that high school membership was associated with better academic performance, stronger school bonding, a reduced likelihood of school misbehavior, and reduced likelihood of substance use. Analyses showed support for the reliability and validity of the PSSM among Chilean adolescents.

Preliminary investigation of the psychological sense of school membership scale with primary school students in a cross-cultural context

“…This study investigated the factor structure of the PSSM on primary school populations and examined measurement invariance for three cross-cultural groups. Results of this study were similar to previous studies with adolescent students (Gaete et al, 2016;Hagborg, 1994;Ye & Wallace, 2014;You et al, 2011) and supported previous research, which showed that a reduced number of PSSM items can be used to measure students' sense of school belonging. Some may raise questions about whether this is a new instrument; however, this was not our intent.…”

“…Investigating the use of the PSSM with primary school children is particularly important as perceptions of school membership and belonging begin at an early age (Lerner et al, 2018;Whitney & Smith, 1993) and may differ from adolescents. Additionally, despite its use in cross-national research (e.g., Cowden, Govender, Asante, Reardon, & George, 2016;Gaete, Montero-Marin, Rojas-Barahona, Olivares, & Araya, 2016;Ye & Wallace, 2014), the PSSM has not yet been subject to needed investigations regarding its invariance across sociocultural contexts. This article addresses these limitations by examining the PSSM in primary schools across three countries: The United States, China, and the United Kingdom.…”

“…Subsequent studies have found varying factor structures across different samples, particularly with the five negatively worded items. Several studies found that the negatively worded items formed their own factor (Gaete et al, 2016;Hagborg, 1994;Ye & Wallace, 2014;You et al, 2011), which may be due to a method effect (DiStefano & Motl, 2009). Two of these studies also found that the scale had a three-factor structure, but, depending on the specific study, some items were not retained due to cross-loadings (e.g., Hagborg, 1994;You et al, 2011).…”

Mental health among children and adolescents: Construct validity, reliability, and parent-adolescent agreement on the ‘Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire’ in Chile

“…Furthermore, there was one item with a factor loading lower than de recommended cut-off point (<0.32) [ 72 ], namely ‘good friends’ (0.25). This methodological effect has been found in the SDQ previously [ 40 , 73 ], and in other instruments [ 74 , 75 ]. In our study, these results may be explained by the cognitive development of people at this age (9–15 years old), who may have had difficulty understanding the answer format or the direction of the intercalated questions.…”

The Role of Psychological Sense of School Membership and Postcode as Predictors of Profiles of Socio-emotional Health in Primary School Children in England

“…The Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale-Primary (PSSM-P; Wagle et al, 2018) is a recently developed modification of the original 18-item PSSM (Goodenow, 1993), which has been widely documented as a reliable and valid measure of school belonging, useful in various contexts (Cheung, 2004;Cowden, Govender, Oppong Asante, Reardon, & George, 2018;You, Ritchey, Furlong, Shochet, & Boman, 2011). The factor structure of the original scale was later examined with several studies finding that the negatively worded items formed their own factor and once these items were removed, a unidimensional factor structure of 11 items could be found (Gaete, Montero-Marin, Rojas-Barahona, Olivares, & Araya, 2016;Hagborg, 1998;Ye & Wallace, 2014;You et al, 2011). More recently, a nine-item unidimensional factor structure has been found sufficient to accurately grasp the school sense of belonging in primary school children, across different contexts-UK, China, and United States of America (Wagle et al, 2018), potentially providing a much more efficient way of screening for well-being levels in early years and allowing for screening in younger children.…”