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Results align with prior individual-level validation, but indicate a simpler school-level structure for engagement and environment, while safety showed no well-fitting model. Findings inform the use of EDSCLS for accountability measurement.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/measuring-school-climate-validating-the-education-department-school-climate-survey-in-a-sample-of-urban-middle-and-high-school-students/590919/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/measuring-school-climate-validating-the-education-department-school-climate-survey-in-a-sample-of-urban-middle-and-high-school-students/590919.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Stanford","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-23","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":30},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"What is the Education Department School Climate Survey (EDSCLS) used for?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"EDSCLS is a freely available school climate survey used to measure three domains of school climate: engagement, safety, and environment.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"How was the EDSCLS validated in this study?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"The study uses EDSCLS data from 3,416 students in 26 urban middle and high schools in Washington, DC and applies both single-level and multilevel confirmatory factor analyses.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"What did the study find about the factor structure at the school level?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"At the school level, engagement and environment suggested a simpler factor structure, while the safety domain could not identify a reasonable, well-fitting model.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},590919,1792161031,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",[83,87,91,95,100,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":84,"show_sort_weight":85,"slug":86},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":88,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":131},{"doc_id":78,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":30,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},2336477552062,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","AERA Open  \nJuly-September 2020, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 1–21 DOI: 10. 1177/2332858420948024  \nArticle reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2020. [http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero)  \nMeasuring School Climate: Validating the Education Department School Climate Survey in a Sample of Urban Middle and High School  \nStudents  \nRenee Ryberg  \nSarah Her  \nDeborah Temkin  \nRebecca Madill  \nClaire Kelley  \nJoy Thompson  \nAlexander Gabriel  \nChild Trends  \nThe U.S. Department of Education’s School Climate Survey (EDSCLS) is a free, open-source school climate survey available for any local or state education agency to use to measure three domains of school climate: engagement, safety, and environment. The present study leverages EDSCLS data from 3,416 students from 26 middle and high schools in Washington, DC to confirm the factor structure of the survey using both single-level and multilevel confirmatory factor analyses. At the individual level, our findings paralleled those from the original validation study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education.  \nAt the school level, our findings suggested a simpler factor structure for the engagement and environment domains, and could not identify a reasonable well-fitting model for the safety domain. Particularly, as more states are considering school climate measurement for accountability systems, these findings suggest that simply using the individual-level structure may not yield valid measurement.  \nKeywords: school climate, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis  \nSchoolS, districts, and states are increasingly recognizing the need to improve school climates to promote the academic, social, and emotional well-being of students (Jordan & Hamilton, 2020; Temkin & Harper, 2018; Thapa et al., 2013; Wang & Degol, 2016) . Many states, for instance, included references to school climate within their implementation plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act, and at least six states include school climate measurement as an accountability metric (Jordan & Hamilton, 2020; Temkin & Harper, 2018) . Improving school climate, let alone using school climate for accountability purposes, requires the ability to validly and reliably measure school climate. Although there are a multitude of available surveys, most are proprietary and require schools to incur costs to use them (National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments [NCSSLE], n.d.). In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) responded to the need for a freely available school climate survey by developing the “Education Department School Climate Survey”(EDSCLS), a freely available tool any state or local education agency (LEA) can adopt to measure school climate. The tool was initially pilot tested with a diverse set of schools across the United States to refine and  \nvalidate the measure (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2015) using a single-level confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) prior to launch. However, to date, no external validation studies have been conducted and no analyses have used a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis procedure that may be more appropriate for measures intended to capture attributes at a school level (Cornell & Huang, 2019; Schweig, 2014) . This article leverages baseline data from an ongoing evaluation of a school climate improvement framework in Washington, DC to confirm and extend the findings of these initial pilot tests and demonstrate the validity ofthe EDSCLS.  \nDefining School Climate  \nSchool climate broadly refers to the quality of multiple facets of a school’s environment to support student learning (Thapa et al., 2013) . Definitions of school climate vary considerably among researchers and among measurement tools (Wang & Degol, 2016) . ED considers school climate across three domains: engagement, or the quality of opportunities for students","cbCaibZ6p7kgQBDY","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaibZ6p7kgQBDY","pdf",747142,21,"English","# Measuring School Climate\n## Defining School Climate\n## Domains of School Climate (Engagement, Safety, Environment)\n## Validation Approach and Findings","[{\"question\":\"What is the Education Department School Climate Survey (EDSCLS) used for?\",\"answer\":\"EDSCLS is a freely available school climate survey used to measure three domains of school climate: engagement, safety, and environment.\"},{\"question\":\"How was the EDSCLS validated in this study?\",\"answer\":\"The study uses EDSCLS data from 3,416 students in 26 urban middle and high schools in Washington, DC and applies both single-level and multilevel confirmatory factor analyses.\"},{\"question\":\"What did the study find about the factor structure at the school level?\",\"answer\":\"At the school level, engagement and environment suggested a simpler factor structure, while the safety domain could not identify a reasonable, well-fitting model.\"}]","Measuring School Climate - Validating the Education Department School Climate Survey in a Sample of Urban Middle and High School Students | PDF",1792070729,53]