The Simple School Belonging Scale: Working Toward a Unidimensional Measure of Student Belonging

Whiting, Erin Feinauer; Everson, Kimberlee C.; Feinauer, Erika

doi:10.1080/07481756.2017.1358057

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The data from this new instrument provided support for the definition of this construct as students' perceptions of affirming interpersonal relationships among students informed by interactions in a common academic experience. Findings support our first hypothesis of a unidimensional treatment of BCBS data for both delivery contexts, which is aligned with findings by Whiting et al (2018), but different from the UBQ (Slaten et al, 2018). The BCBS extends beyond prior work by providing insights into the factor structure within online and face-to-face samples.…”

Section: Standardized Factor Loadingssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Specifically, we hypothesized that scores in the online context will be slightly lower than scores in the face-to-face context given that face-to-face courses tend to lend themselves to more interactions. Fourth, we expected scores on the BCBS to have the strongest positive relationship with scores from instruments measuring the sense of belonging at the university level and social connectedness (Slaten et al, 2018;Whiting et al, 2018). Fifth, we expected medium to strong positive correlations between BCBS and academic motivation scores.…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Single items on national surveys (e.g., NCES, 2012) present psychometric limits and alternative instruments with improved psychometric qualities for sampled data have been developed (e.g., Slaten et al, 2018;Whiting et al, 2018). For instance, the Simple School Belonging Scale (SSBS) scale by Whiting was developed in response to multidimensionality issues demonstrated by the PSSM but specifically designed for adolescents, not postsecondary students.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The current study examined postsecondary students' sense of belonging to other students in their course. Initially, a pool of 20 items was written by the authors based on themes regarding postsecondary students' qualitative descriptions of sense of belonging in online and face-to-face modalities (Author et al, 2021), considering the current sense of belonging instruments (Goodenow, 1993;Slaten et al, 2018;Whiting et al, 2018), and according to guidelines for best practices in educational and psychological measurement (AERA et al, 2014;Bandalos, 2018). A set of 20 items were iteratively refined based on expert reviews and cognitive interviewing until the final set of items was determined.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Brief Course Belonging Scale: Developing a Measure of Postsecondary Students' Course-Level Sense of Belonging Across Online and Face-To-Face Modalities

Toland

Lingat

Dueber

2022

JOSEP

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Sense of belonging is an important topic in higher education. However, few studies have examined this important construct at the course level and in the online learning context; even fewer are quantitative by design. The aim of our study was to develop and evaluate a measure of sense of belonging that could be used across different postsecondary learning contexts. A psychometric investigation was conducted at a large, US southeastern university on data using the newly developed Brief Course Belonging Scale (BCBS). Results provide evidence for the unidimensional treatment of BCBS data across delivery context, convergent validity for BCBS scores as they relate positively to belonging at the university level, connectedness, and academic motivation, and discriminant validity for BCBS scores as they related minimally with loneliness. Differential item functioning was detected on one item, but this did not jeopardize score validity and reliability. Specific psychometric implications regarding the domain-specificity of the course delivery context as well as the administration of the novel instrument to a more broad, and diverse student population are recommended.

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Section: Standardized Factor Loadingssupporting

confidence: 82%

mentioning

confidence: 94%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Brief Course Belonging Scale: Developing a Measure of Postsecondary Students' Course-Level Sense of Belonging Across Online and Face-To-Face Modalities

Toland

Lingat

Dueber

2022

JOSEP

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“…Information about participation in the Free and Reduced Lunch program was obtained from official school records to capture a measure of SES. In addition, general categories of school sense of belonging were constructed using the Simple School Belonging Scale (SSBS) which includes 10 items designed to measure overall belonging at school (Whiting et al, 2018). Cutoff scores were established through an analysis of distributions (range = 10–40) with Low (L = <20), Medium Low (ML = 21–27), Medium High (MH = 28–31), and High (H = >31) for each student participant.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Smile!”: Emotion Performance as a Strategy for Belonging in Junior High School

Whiting

2020

Journal of Adolescent Research

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This mixed-method research explores how students (ages 12–15) describe dispositional qualities for belonging and fitting in one junior high school. Inductive coding of open-ended responses about perceptions of belonging in school shows candor about the emotional performances and management of emotions for belonging at school. Recommendations for being authentic, nice, and friendly emerged as relevant for belonging. Findings suggest that students perform niceness and friendliness to conform to emotion norms while seeking to retain authenticity. Smiling in particular was referenced as a way to perform niceness and friendliness. Chi-square and binomial logistic regression analyses add context to how advice categories were distributed across status groups at the school. Students who speak a language other than English at home, or with minority religious affiliation were more likely to report a need for authenticity. Female as compared with male students were more likely to suggest each of the three dispositions for belonging in the school. The emotional work of students is noteworthy wherein there are potential sanctions for those not considered nice, or nice enough, and this work augments existing research on school belonging to add the often-missing student voices to enhance the corpus of research about belonging in adolescence.

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Loving lunch in junior high: Lunchtime activities and a sense of belonging in school

Whiting

Hinton

Jensen

2022

Journal Community Psychology

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We explore student lunchtime experiences as they relate to student sense of belonging. We use SPSS Two‐Step cluster analysis and logistic regression of data from a schoolwide survey (n = 830) in the United States. Stepwise modeling is used to determine the importance of clusters representing lunchtime activity preferences and love of lunch on belonging scores. Loving lunch significantly positively affects school belonging. Students naturally group into five distinct different activity profiles based on lunchtime preferences. These profiles are significantly related to a sense of belonging. Being active with peers during lunch was most strongly correlated with sense of belonging. Lunchtime warrants more attention for fostering a sense of belonging in the school community. Broadening lunchtime activity options, especially in schools where there are few available ways for socializing and being active, has the potential to support the diverse needs of students and increase belonging.

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The Simple School Belonging Scale: Working Toward a Unidimensional Measure of Student Belonging

Cited by 16 publications

References 15 publications

The Brief Course Belonging Scale: Developing a Measure of Postsecondary Students' Course-Level Sense of Belonging Across Online and Face-To-Face Modalities

The Brief Course Belonging Scale: Developing a Measure of Postsecondary Students' Course-Level Sense of Belonging Across Online and Face-To-Face Modalities

“Smile!”: Emotion Performance as a Strategy for Belonging in Junior High School

Loving lunch in junior high: Lunchtime activities and a sense of belonging in school

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