In order to meausre and assess school connectedness, it needs to be defined. School Connectedness can be defined as a sense of belonging in a school, whether students like their school and feel supported in it. It can also be found that school connectedness comes from students having friends at school and being involved in extracurricular activities.
The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) that has been used in a multitude of small- and large-scale settings; including elementary and secondary K-12 schools. The MSPSS was created to identify levels of social support adequacy and to assess perceptions of social support adequacy from three specific sources: family, friends, and significant others (Zimet et al., 1988). The MSPSS assessment tool is simple, time conserving, and easy to use with high internal validity data points. Factor analysis is used in order to determine the validity of considering different sources of support as independent from one another. The MSPSS has 12 items addressing the three main areas of study with family, friends, and significant others. Each of these is broken down into four items. The areas specifically looked at are: social popularity, respect, and it directly related to perceived social support. Each of these items is rated on a seven-point Likert-type scale that ranges from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). The twelve subscales are: 1) There is a special person who is around when I am in need, 2) There is a special person with whom I can share my joys and sorrows, 3) My family really tries to help me, 4) I get the emotional help and support I need from my family, 5) I have a special person who is a real source of comfort to me, 6) My friends really try to help me, 7) I can count on my friends when things go wrong, 8) I can talk about my problems with my family, 9) I have friends with whom I can share my joys and sorrows, 10) There is a special person in my life who care about my feelings, 11) My family is willing to help me make decisions, and 12) I can talk about my problems with my friends (Zimet et al., 1988).
Elementary-aged students and secondary-aged children both had strikingly similar results in regard to levels of perceived social support and levels of depression or anxiety. Those who scored higher in all three sub-groups of perceived social support also revealed lower levels of depression and anxiety when compared with the depression and anxiety scale used by the researchers. With the adverse being true with those who scored low in levels of perceived social support. Interestingly enough, these results only apply to perceived social support. Meaning if there is not as much social support as it is perceived the results still hold true to that of what is perceived by an individual (Zimet et al., 1988). A study conducted in an urban school district also found that the student who had access to higher levels of perceived social support were more likely to graduate and have lower levels of depression or anxiety (Canty-Mitchell & Zimet, 2000). Thus, schools that do a better job at creating an environment of perceived social support that engages the family and other important community partners will see lower levels of depression and anxiety across their student populations.
Canty-Mitchell, J. & Zimet, G.D. (2000). Psychometric properties of the multidimensional scale of perceived social support in urban adolescents. American Journal of Community
Psychology, 28, 391-400.
Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G. & Farley, G. K. (1988). The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52, 30-41.
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