Preliminary Investigation of the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale with Primary School Students in a Cross-Cultural Context

Rhea  Wagle; Erin  Dowdy; Chunyan Yang; Olympia Palikara; Susana Castro; Karen Nylund-Gibson; Michael  Furlong

doi:10.1177/0143034318803670

Preliminary Investigation of the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale with Primary School Students in a Cross-Cultural Context

Rhea Wagle , Erin Dowdy , Chunyan Yang, Olympia Palikara, Susana Castro, Karen Nylund-Gibson, Michael Furlong

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Abstract

The Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale has been used for more than 20 years to measure students’ sense of school belonging, yet its psychometric properties have had limited examination with pre-adolescent children. This study investigated the utility and psychometrics of the PSSM in three primary school samples from the U.S., China, and the U.K. Exploratory factor analysis revealed good fit for a unidimensional factor structure in the U.S.
sample; this factor structure was confirmed in all three samples. Measurement invariance analyses revealed configural, metric, and scalar invariance across all three samples, providing support for the measure’s equal functioning cross-culturally. In addition, path analyses revealed significant positive relations of the PSSM total belonging score with gratitude and prosocial behavior, and significant negative relations with symptoms of distress. Future research directions
and implications are discussed.

© 2018, SAGE Publications. This is an author produced version of a paper published in School Psychology International uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

Original language	English
Number of pages	30
Journal	School Psychology International
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034318803670
Publication status	Published - 4 Oct 2018

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Cite this

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title = "Preliminary Investigation of the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale with Primary School Students in a Cross-Cultural Context",

abstract = "The Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale has been used for more than 20 years to measure students{\textquoteright} sense of school belonging, yet its psychometric properties have had limited examination with pre-adolescent children. This study investigated the utility and psychometrics of the PSSM in three primary school samples from the U.S., China, and the U.K. Exploratory factor analysis revealed good fit for a unidimensional factor structure in the U.S.sample; this factor structure was confirmed in all three samples. Measurement invariance analyses revealed configural, metric, and scalar invariance across all three samples, providing support for the measure{\textquoteright}s equal functioning cross-culturally. In addition, path analyses revealed significant positive relations of the PSSM total belonging score with gratitude and prosocial behavior, and significant negative relations with symptoms of distress. Future research directionsand implications are discussed. {\textcopyright} 2018, SAGE Publications. This is an author produced version of a paper published in School Psychology International uploaded in accordance with the publisher{\textquoteright}s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.",

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AU - Nylund-Gibson, Karen

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