Measuring School Climate: A Systematic Review of Initial Development and Validation Studies
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Measuring School Climate: A Systematic Review of Initial Development and Validation Studies A. Stephen Lenz 1
2
& Lauran Rocha & Yahyahan Aras
2,3
Accepted: 2 October 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
A systematic search was conducted to identify measures of school climate developed and reported between 1993 to 2017. We coded data related to participant and setting characteristics, qualities of measures, amounts of validity evidence, and degrees of reliability estimates. Results indicated 9 school climate measures featuring disparate representation of academic atmosphere, community, safety, and institutional structures. Quality of validity and reliability evidence were wide-ranging with distinctive tiers emerging for consideration by school counselors and professional counselors working in schools. Keywords School climate . Measurement . Psychometrics . Validity, reliability, school counseling
Introduction In recent years, schools across the world have emerged as more than academic learning environments. Contemporary educational systems are arguably the chief milieu for children and adolescents to develop adaptive attitudes, emotions, and skills that support forming positive relationships while becoming increasingly independent (Thapa et al. 2013). Wang and Degol (2016) identified school climate as the convergence of a school’s characteristic academic atmosphere, community of interpersonal relationships, physical and emotional safety, and institutional structures. Ice et al. (2015) suggested that school climate is evidenced by both the processes and outcomes that define the range of acceptable interactions and norms on a campus. Student perceptions of school climate have been positively associated with academic achievement (Berkoqitz et al. 2017), physical health (Lucarelli et al. 2014), willingness to ask for help (Shukla et al. 2016), prosocial behavior (O’Brennan et al. 2014), as well as, resilience and emotional well-
* A. Stephen Lenz [email protected]
1
University of Mississippi, 145 Guyton Hall, University, MS 38677, USA
2
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, 6300 Ocean Drive, Corpus Christi, TX 78412, USA
3
Seattle University, 901 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122, USA
International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling
being (Aldridge et al. 2016). By contrast, when school climate appraisals are low, this tends to be associated with deleterious activities including bullying (Duggins et al. 2016), absenteeism (Burton et al. 2014), dropout (Jia et al. 2016), and teacher burnout (Malinen and Savilainen 2016). Thus, perceptions of school climate may be a putative indicator of campus health and the well-being of students within their learning environment. Given the high-stake implications for the relationships between school climate and youth development across cultural characteristics (La Salle et al. 2015), identification and use of related assessments may support best practices for all counselors working in school settings. During recent d
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