School Climate Assessment Instruments for Middle School and High School Students

Education, Training, Research Character Education Survey.
(ETR Associates - 2000)

ETR Associates. Santa Cruz, CA 2000.

Purpose: The ETR Character Education Surveys – Student and Staff Versions are designed to help middle and high schools evaluate their character education efforts by assessing the character of their schools, the school staff’s support for character education, and the extent to which students believe in and manifest good character (ETR, 2000).

Short Description: Student version of survey assesses school climate, student attitudes and behaviors related to the following values: caring, respect, responsibility, trustworthiness/honesty, family, and community service. Students can typically complete survey within one 50-minute class period. Staff survey measures staff’s perceptions of school’s climate, as well as their attitudes toward character education. Many of items on staff/student surveys overlap, allowing comparison between the groups.

School Climate Scale Dimensions
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SCALE NAME	SCALE DESCRIPTION	SAMPLE ITEM
Sense of community	Measures the degree to which students and staff believe that their school feels like a community	Students and staff are proud of this school. (+)
Bonding with school	Measures how connected students and staff feel with the school	I feel like a real part of this school. (+)
School values	Measures the degree to which students and staff believe that the school community shares a set of values including kindness respect, and caring	People at this school share a clear set of values. (+)
Student behavior	Measures extent students and staff perceptions of how students as a group demonstrate prosocial behaviors	Students at this school can be trusted. (+)
Adult behavior	Measures extent students and staff perceptions of how school staff treat students	The adults at this school are good role models for students. (+)
Intergroup relations	Measures student and staff perceptions of how well different groups within the school get along	At this school, people from different backgrounds get along with each other. (+)

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Reliability

Sense of Community (9 items; a=.885); Bonding with School (6 items; a=.830); School Values (6 items; a=.790); Student Behavior (8 items; a=.853); Adult Behavior (6 items; a.845); Intergroup relations (7 items; a.775)

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Sources/Bibliography

ETR Associates. ETR Character Education Survey. P.O. Box 1830, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1830. Phone: (831) 438-4060. Fax: (831) 438-4080. www.etr.org

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Cost/Copyright/Availability

ETR charges no fee for schools to use surveys. However, to receive permission to use the copyrighted surveys schools or districts must sign an agreement to include their data in national database and this ensures confidentiality of each school’s data. ETR is developing a database that will ultimately allow schools to compare their results with results from other similar schools.

For schools that request it, ETR can conduct data entry and analysis on a fee-for-service basis.

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Compiled by Sarra B. Baraily & Melissa Quon Huber, Michigan State University, (517) 335-7732.
These materials were developed under a grant awarded by the Michigan Department of Education as part of the Michigan Model Partnerships in Character Education.

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