TY - JOUR
T1 - Does School Climate Mean the Same Thing in the United States as in Mexico? A Focus on Measurement Invariance
AU - Shukla, Kathan D.
AU - Waasdorp, Tracy E.
AU - Lindstrom Johnson, Sarah
AU - Orozco Solis, Mercedes Gabriela
AU - Nguyen, Amanda J.
AU - Rodríguez, Cecilia Colunga
AU - Bradshaw, Catherine P.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the Maryland State Department of Education and Sheppard Pratt Health System for their support of this research through the Maryland Safe and Supportive Schools Project.
Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded in part by grants from the U.S. Department of Education, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the National Institute of Justice.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2019/2/1
Y1 - 2019/2/1
N2 - School climate is an important construct for guiding violence prevention efforts in U.S. schools, but there has been less consideration of this concept in its neighboring country Mexico, which has a higher prevalence of violence. The U.S. Department of Education outlined a three-domain conceptualization of school climate (i.e., safe and supportive schools model) that includes engagement, safety, and the school environment. To examine the applicability of this school climate model in Mexico, the present study tested its measurement invariance across middle school students in the United States (n = 15,099) and Mexico (n = 2,211). Findings supported full invariance for engagement and modified-safety scales indicating that factor loadings and intercepts contributed almost equally to factor means, and scale scores were comparable across groups. Partial invariance was found for the environment scales. Results of a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) consisting of all 13 school climate scales indicated significantly positive associations among all scales in the U.S. sample and among most scales in the Mexico sample. Implications of these findings are discussed.
AB - School climate is an important construct for guiding violence prevention efforts in U.S. schools, but there has been less consideration of this concept in its neighboring country Mexico, which has a higher prevalence of violence. The U.S. Department of Education outlined a three-domain conceptualization of school climate (i.e., safe and supportive schools model) that includes engagement, safety, and the school environment. To examine the applicability of this school climate model in Mexico, the present study tested its measurement invariance across middle school students in the United States (n = 15,099) and Mexico (n = 2,211). Findings supported full invariance for engagement and modified-safety scales indicating that factor loadings and intercepts contributed almost equally to factor means, and scale scores were comparable across groups. Partial invariance was found for the environment scales. Results of a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) consisting of all 13 school climate scales indicated significantly positive associations among all scales in the U.S. sample and among most scales in the Mexico sample. Implications of these findings are discussed.
KW - Mexico
KW - international comparison
KW - measurement invariance
KW - school climate
KW - violence prevention
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U2 - 10.1177/0734282917731459
DO - 10.1177/0734282917731459
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85059530527
SN - 0734-2829
VL - 37
SP - 55
EP - 68
JO - Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
JF - Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
IS - 1
ER -