Development of a Standard Model for School Climate and Safety Assessment: Final Report
Date
2016
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Publisher
Curry School of Education, University of Virginia.
Abstract
The purpose of this project was to develop a standard model for the assessment of school climate and safety guided by authoritative school climate theory. We devised and tested student and school staff versions of the Authoritative School Climate Survey in a series of statewide surveys over a four-year period (2013-2016). In collaboration with the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and Department of Education, the project collected data from more than 700 secondary schools including 200,501 student surveys and 45,793 staff surveys. Participation rates were 98% for schools, 85% for students in grades 7-12, and 61% for teachers and other school staff invited to participate. A series of multi-level factor analytic studies established strong evidence of factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity for key scales measuring disciplinary structure, academic expectations, student support, student engagement, and prevalence of teasing and bullying. Scales were developed for both student and staff versions of the survey at both individual (student or staff) and school levels of analysis. Secondary scales to measure student aggressive attitudes, positive values, bullying victimization, and bullying by teachers were also developed. Project findings have been reported in 27 refereed journal articles to date, with additional articles in progress. An authoritative school was characterized by high expectations for students, as reflected in high disciplinary structure (strict but fair discipline) and high academic expectations for students, and high support for students (adults are respectful and caring toward students). The primary project findings were that characteristics of an authoritative school climate were associated with positive academic and behavioral outcomes at individual and/or school levels. The academic outcomes included higher student engagement, higher grades, higher standardized test passing rates, and lower dropout rates. The behavioral outcomes included lower student aggression toward both peers and teachers as well as less student involvement in risk behaviors of self-reported alcohol and marijuana use, bullying, fighting, weapon-carrying at school, interest in gang membership, and suicidal thoughts and behavior. All of the published studies included racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status variables in their analyses as student- or school-level measures. These analyses generally demonstrated that the primary findings of the study were not confounded by race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status. Additional analyses showed comparable criterion validity on key measures for Black, Hispanic, and White student groups. Furthermore, schools with authoritative characteristics had lower overall suspension rates and a lower gap between Black and White suspension rates. The results of this study will help move the field toward consensus on a theoretically-grounded and more psychometrically sound model for school climate and safety assessment
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Keywords
school safety, assessment, authoritative school climate
Citation
Cornell, D., Huang, F., Konold, T., Shukla, K., Malone, M., Datta, P., Jia, Y., Stohlman, S., Burnette, A., & Meyer, J. P. (2016). Development of a Standard Model for School Climate and Safety Assessment: Final Report. Charlottesville, VA: Curry School of Education, University of Virginia.