Refining the Construct of School Safety: An Exploration of Correlates and Construct Validity of School Safety Measures

• NCJ Number: 226237
• Author(s): Travis C. Laxton; Jeffrey R. Sprague
• Date Published: December 2005
• Length: 89 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2005-JL-FX-0157
• Agencies: OJJDP-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Test/Measurement

Annotation

This study evaluated the internal consistency of and relationships among four measures of school climate and safety: the Oregon School Safety Survey (OSSS), the Effective Behavior Support Survey 1.5 (EBS), the School-Wide Evaluation Tool (SET), and the Oregon School Climate and Safety Survey (OSCSS).

Abstract

The testing found that the majority of scales showed acceptable reliability, but some were unacceptably low. The OSSS demonstrated a clear two-factor orthogonal solution; the EBS produced a clear four-factor oblique solution; and the SET demonstrated a four-factor oblique solution that was not clearly interpretable. Several of the factors of the EBS demonstrated significant correlations with SET and OSSS factors. The SET and OSSS did not correlate significantly across any factors. Using the OSCSS scales, three measures of school safety/disorder were predicted using standard multiple regression procedures. Significant multiple regression equations were found for each of the three measures of school safety/disorder, including Student Victimization, Student Rebellious Behavior, and Drug Availability. A practical implication of these findings is that schools may reduce both student victimization and drug availability by making the school rules regarding acceptable student behavior more clear. Alpha coefficients were calculated for each of the scales of the four instruments; suggestions for future related research are offered. 30 tables, 84 references, and appended universal screening results