Instruments


Belonging

School belonging is a student's sense of acceptance, respect, inclusion, and support within their school environment. This can refer to the classroom, an academic department, or the entire school. Many factors can contribute to a student's sense of belonging, such as a strong teacher-student relationship. It is important for researchers and educators to carefully consider which aspect of belonging is most relevant to their work and which measures best fit their population.

Assessing a student's sense of belonging can be useful for researchers and educators in a number of ways. It can help schools identify students who may be at risk for negative outcomes and provide opportunities for intervention. In addition, measures of belonging can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions and curricular strategies.

It's important to keep in mind that belonging is not a fixed competency. Next, only the student can report on their own sense of belonging, and a single point-in-time measure may not provide a complete picture. Repeated assessments may be necessary to fully understand a student's experience.

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The Belonging Uncertainty Scale is an assessment of an individual's worry that they do not fit into a certain group or setting. The 3 question items that constitute this scale are scored on a seven-point Likert scale.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: Post secondary

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The Child Engagement Questionnaire (CEQ) measures the engagement of young children. Adults who know the child well complete the questionnaire. CEQ has 32 items on a four-point scale (1 not at all typical, 2 somewhat typical, 3 typical, 4 very typical). CEQ focuses on four domains: competence, persistence, undifferentiated behavior, and attention. 

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: Pre-Kindergarten

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Student-reported sense of class cohesion, belonging, trust, and feeling heard.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade, Post secondary

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The Cognia™ Student Engagement Survey was designed to measure elementary, middle and high school student engagement through students’ responses to items about their learning experiences. The survey consists of items categorized into three components or domains of engagement: behavioral, cognitive and emotional (Fredricks et al., 2004). Behavioral engagement refers to a student’s efforts in the classroom (e.g., Connell & Wellborn, 1991), while cognitive engagement examines a student’s investment in learning (e.g., Fredricks et al., 2004), and emotional engagement measures a student’s emotions or feelings about the classroom and school in general (e.g., Finn & Rock, 1997; Voelkl,1997). Engagement is seen as having different levels (e.g., Crick, 2012), and, as such, each of the domains is further broken down into three categories of engagement quality: committed, compliant, and disengaged. Finally, each category consists of two distinct levels; thus, the committed category has an “invested” or “immersed” level; the compliant category has a “strategic” or “ritual” level; and the disengaged category has a “retreatism” or “rebellion” level.


This survey collects direct feedback from students regarding their level and quality of engagement in the learning process; at the same time, it assesses how much they enjoy school on a variety of practical and actionable levels.


The Cognia™ Student Engagement Survey is specifically designed to provide a useful summary of the detailed information represented from students’ collective responses and provide information about their opinions regarding their engagement in their learning environments.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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The Identification with School Questionnaire includes 16 Likert-scale items assessing students' identification with or disidentification from school.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade

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The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is a school-based longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States in 1994-95 that includes several items related to students' sense of belonging (e.g., “I feel like I am part of this school” and “I feel close to people at this school”).

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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The Psychological Sense of School Membership includes 18-items that measure adolescent students' perceived belonging or psychological membership in the school environment.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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The School Belongingness Scale (SBS) is a 10-item measure of students' sense of belonging in the school as a whole as well as their relationships with teachers and peers. The measure includes items related to "Social Exclusion" and "Social Acceptance."

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

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The Sense of Social Fit Scale is a 17-item measure that assesses how much a person feels they belong in a group, such as a school, club, or academic department.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade, Post secondary

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The Student Engagement Instrument (SEI) is a 35-item (secondary) or 31-items (elementary) instrument that measures various components of student engagement, including teacher-student relationships which may provide insights into students' sense of belonging at school.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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The full 78-item Hemingway includes 15 ecological subscales measuring three domains of adolescent connectedness - connectedness to self, connectedness to others, and connectedness to society. 

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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The Scale for Teachers’ Assessment of Routines Engagement (STARE) documents teachers’ perspectives of a child’s engagement in classroom activities. Suitable for both typically developing children and children with disabilities, STARE focuses on how much time the child was engaged with adults, peers, and materials (toys, art supplies, environment in general). In addition, STARE explores how complex the engagement was. STARE is completed after a specific classroom activity and takes about 20 seconds. The STARE can be completed as frequently as necessary. 

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: < 3 Years, Pre-Kindergarten

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The SSP, available in both English and Spanish, is an online survey questionnaire with 195 multiple-choice items. These items address students’ beliefs about their social environment—neighborhoods, schools, friends, and families—and about their own physical and psychological health and school performance (individual adaptation). The survey is divided into six modules: About You (6 items), Neighborhood (26 items), School (54 items), Friends (25 items), Family (45 items), and Health and Well-Being (39 items).

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade

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The Social Connectedness Scale includes 8 items and measures students' sense of connectedness, affiliation, and companionship to provide a broad picture of belongingness. The authors have an accompanying Social Assurance scale (which measures students' sense of companionship and affiliation) often administered in tandem with the Social Connectedness Scale.

Category: Student Well-Being

Sub-Category: Belonging

Grades: Post secondary

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