Strengthening School Connectedness to Increase Student Success
Category: Student Well-Being
Instrument Overview
Studies show that people of color (Steele & Aronson, 1995), first-generation college students (Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014), and women (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000) may struggle in school (or, in the case of women, in science, technology, engineering, and math classes) because they feel they do not belong there. Yet reassuring students that they indeed “fit” in school, majors, or other groups helps them learn more, earn better grades, and even avoid illness (Walton & Cohen, 2011). Because education and health are important drivers of social mobility (Card, 2001; Halleröd & Gustafsson, 2011), increasing people’s sense of social fit may be one pathway out of poverty. 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. Researchers have used this measure with college students whose parents did not earn a four-year degree (i.e., first-generation college students, Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014), college students in remedial classes (Devers, et al., 2016), and American and Canadian college students of African, Asian, European, Latinx, and Native heritages (Walton & Cohen, 2007; Walton et al., 2012).
Note: The overview provided for this instrument includes content that may have been sourced from the instrument publisher's or author’s website (or other site providing information about the instrument). This information is presented for educational and informational purposes only. If you have any questions about the content or its permitted uses, please contact annenberg@brown.edu.
Organization
Topic
Student Well-Being Category
American Institutes for Research® partnered with the Annenberg Institute at Brown University to collect instruments related to student well-being.
Content
Grades
6th Grade,
7th Grade,
8th Grade,
9th Grade,
10th Grade,
11th Grade,
12th Grade
Keywords
Student Well-Being ; Belonging ; Belongingness in school ; Social Mobility ; Group belongingness
Respondent
Student
Administration Information
Length
17 items
Administration
Paper
Access and Use
Contact
Open Access
Yes
Setting
Undefined
Psychometrics (additional guidance)
Psychometric References
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82-96. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.1.82
