Session: Measuring School Climate to Inform Prevention: The Promise of Multi-Informant Surveys and Observation Methodologies (Society for Prevention Research 25th Annual Meeting)

School climate is linked to a number of youth outcomes, ranging from academic achievement, to bullying, to substance use. In recent years, school climate has become synonymous with schools’ abilities to prevent negative outcomes and promote healthy youth development. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify a fifth measure of accountability to complement standardized achievement assessments and graduation rates. School climate is among the options explicitly listed in ESSA as a potential for this measure. Yet, there is no standard definition of, or measurement tool for, school climate. Existing methodologies include both observational tools like the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) or the Assessing School Settings: Interactions of Students and Teachers (ASSIST) as well as multi-informant surveys such as the recently released U.S. Department of Education School Climate Survey (EDSCLS). This symposium brings together three papers, each using different measurement strategies to assess school climate.

The first paper, “Understanding Adult and Student Interactions in Nonclassroom Settings” uses ASSIT data from 58 high schools to explore the associations between teacher strategies and student behavior. The paper, which focuses on interactions outside of the typical classroom setting, for instance in the hallways and cafeteria, highlights the key importance of thinking beyond the classroom when assessing school climate as well as the promise of using observation methods.

The second paper, “School Climate Predictors of Homophobic Name-Calling, Sexual Harassment Victimization/Perpetration, & Bystander Intervention among Middle School Youth,” combines survey responses from school staff with those from students in 36 middle schools to better understand the associations between teachers’ perceptions of school climate with student outcomes. This paper highlights the importance of including data beyond students’ perceptions to create a more informative assessment of school climate.

The third paper, “Validating the Department of Education’s School Climate Survey using the CLASS-S” leverages EDSCLS and CLASS data from 30 urban middle and high schools to compare independent observer ratings of school climate to student and school staff survey responses. This paper provides considerations for how different school climate tools may capture different elements of school climate and provides considerations for schools and prevention science researchers.

At the conclusion of the presentations, the discussant will connect the three papers with reflections from previous research using both survey and observational tools in elementary school classrooms.