Student Well-Being and Mental Health

The Maryland Safe and Supports School Survey was developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Youth Violence Prevention in collaboration with project partners. Researchers from the Center undertook a comprehensive review of the literature focusing on the 3 domains of school climate (safety, engagement, and the environment) included in the USDOE model.

The Pride Learning Environment Survey is a comprehensive school climate survey designed for students in grades 6 to 12. This assessment measures aspects ranging from student-teacher relationships to student mental health and teacher involvement alone with several additional concepts. The Pride Learning Environment Survey can be administered in conjunction with the Pride Teaching Environment survey in order to to directly compare teacher and student responses.

The School Climate for Diversity (SCD-S) is a student-reported school racial climate survey for middle and high school students that evaluates ten subscales in two domains (intergroup interactions and school racial socialization) of racial climatetapping.

The School Climate and School Identification Measure was designed to assess four critical (Student-student relations, Student-staff relations, Shared values and approach, and Academic emphasis) school climate factors along with a social identity measure of school identification in students ranging from grade 7 to grade 10.

The Tripod School Climate Index is comprised of seven question items across two commonly accepted dimensions of school climate, safety and relationships. Each question item is answered on a 5-point Likert scale by students in grade 6 though grade 12.

This revised version of the School Climate Measure (SCM) is a 42-item measure comprised of 10 subscales, all rated on a 5-point Likert scale. An additional 2 subscales, Parental Involvement and Opportunities for Student Engagement, have been added to the original 8 subscales (Positive Student-Teacher Relationships, School Connectedness, Academic Support, Order and Discipline, Physical Environment, Social Environment, Perceived Exclusion, and Academic Satisfaction) from the first version of the SCM.

The California School Climate and Safety Survey-Short Form is a self-student reported questionnaire created to assist the state of California in monitoring the creation of safe schools as required by the 2001 federal law, No Child Left Behind. It measures overall school climate and personal-safety related experiences.

The Classroom Climate Scale was created to gauge elementary students' perceptions of school climate. It measures four key dimensions of school climate to help teachers improve school climate and classroom management. It builds on a previous school climate measure used in Chilean public schools by giving the survey robust psychometric qualities.

The Meriden School Climate Survey-Student Version is a 47-item survey of students’ perception of adult support at school, school safety, respect for differences, adult support at home, including academic support, student aggression toward others, and peer support.

The My Class Inventory-Short form, adapted from the longer form version of the My Class Inventory contains 25 yes or no questions written at a low reading level suitable for children. The MCI-SF asks respondents about their perceptions of five different dimensions of their actual classroom environment: Satisfaction, Friction, Competitiveness, Difficulty (with classroom work) and Cohesiveness.

The EDSCLS national benchmark study questionnaires designed for students, instructional staff, and non-instructional staff/principal cover 3 domains and 13 topics. The ED School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS) are a suite of survey instruments that were developed for schools, districts, and states by NCES. This NCES effort extends activities to measure and support school climate by ED’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students (OSHS). Through the EDSCLS, schools nationwide have access to survey instruments and a survey platform that allows for the collection and reporting of school climate data across stakeholders at the local level. The surveys can be used to produce school-, district-, and state-level scores on various indicators of school climate from the perspectives of students, teachers, non-instructional school staff, principals, and parents/guardians. NCES has also developed psychometric benchmarks to enable meaningful comparisons between student subgroups, and between schools.

The 5Essentials Survey from the University of Chicago's Consortium on School Research is an improvement framework and diagnostic survey tool used to assess a school's strengths while highlighting areas and opportunities for improvement across five essential factors for school improvement (Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers, Involved Families, Supportive Environment, and Ambitious Instruction).

The What's Happening in This School Questionnaire (WHITS) is a six scale survey measuring school climate designed for use with students ranging from grades 8 through grade 12. The six scales comprising this survey include, teacher support, peer connectedness, school connectedness, affirming diversity, rule clarity, and reporting and seeking help. Respondents answer all 48 items within this survey on a five-point Likert scale.

The Virginia Secondary School Climate Survey also known as the Authoritative School Climate Survey is administered to students and teachers/staff to assess disciplinary structure and student support, two school climate factors that are thought to inlfluence school climate outcomes such as student engagement and prevalence of testing and bullying in school.

The Youth Connections Scale (YCS), developed by the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota in partnership with Anu Family Services, was created to help child welfare agencies and organizations work more effectively alongside youth to create and sustain a safety net for all youth in foster care. More specifically, the Youth Connections Scale is a tool used to measure relational permeance in youth. The scale is scored on a scale ranging from 0 to 100.

The Instructional Climate Survey-Student version (ICS-S) is a 20-item measure of students' perceptions of school climate created in 1988 in response to an increased focus on school climate as a causative factor in students dropping out of school. Each item is answered on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strong disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

The Inventory of School Climate-Student version (ISC-S) is designed to asses 10 dimensions of school climate related to student adjustment. These dimensions include Teacher support, Consistency and clarity of rules and expectations, Student commitment and achievement orientation, Negative peer interactions, Positive peer interactions, Disciplinary harshness, Student input in decision-making, Instructional innovation/relevance, Support for cultural pluralism, and Safety problems. All items in the ISC-S are completed on a five-point Likert scale.

The School Climate Survey (SCS), comprised of 40 question items, is utilized to assess children’s perceptions of the quality of their school’s climate by measuring the prevalence of behaviors within the school that correspond to specific interpersonal and intrapersonal character traits. All items are responded too using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always).

The Abbreviated School Climate Survey (ASCS), an abbreviated version of the 100-item School Climate survey developed by the Developmental Studies Center (now known as the Center for the Collaborative Classroom), is a 34-item assessment of school climate that includes 7 of the 11 subscales from the original assessment. The subscales include: positive behavior, negative behavior, classroom and school supportiveness, autonomy and influence, safety at schools, enjoyment of school, and school norms and rules).

The Young Children's Perception of School Climate Questionnaire was adapted from Habib, Anson, Cook, Clifford, and Antonio's (1993) School Climate Questionnaire which was originally designed for use in a study of middle school-aged children in Prince George County, Maryland. The resulting instrument, the Young Children's Perception of School Climate Questionnaire, assess younger students' perceptions of relationships with teachers and peers within the school and classroom setting.

The Social Competence and Behavioral Evaluation - 30 (SCBE-30) is a short version of an 80 item Likert measure for parents and teachers to assess  social-emotional competence, internalizing behaviors, and externalizing behaviors in preschool children. It was formerly sold by WPS Publishing but no longer is. It has been translated into many languages and is used in cross-national comparisons.

The Situational Test of Emotion Management is an open-source, performance-based multiple choice test that measures how well one is able to manage their emotions. It was developed in combination with the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding. Both long and short forms are available, as well as an 11-item form appropriate for youth ages 11-15 and their parents called the STEM-Y. 

The Shyness Mindset Scale (Valentiner et al., 2011) is an open-source 4-item measure of perceptions about social interaction and competence as well as specific beliefs regarding shyness in social settings. This measure was developed in the context of a study that applied mindset theory to the domain of inhibited social behavior using a sample of 93 incoming college freshmen. It was adapted from Dweck's work on mindset for intelligence (Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan, 1999).

ZooU is a game/performance based SEL assessment tool for students in grades 2 - 4. It is published and sold by Centervention, which also publishes other game-based assessments Zoo Academy (grades K-1), SS Grin (grades 3-5) Hall of Heroes (grades 6-8), and Stories in Motion (for K-5 students with autism).

The Values in Action Youth Survey (VIA Youth Survey) is an open-access Likert survey for children ages 10-17 measuring 24 character strengths within the broad categories Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, Transcendence, and Wisdom. It has both a 96- and 198- item version, and it has been adapted into many other languages and shorter forms.

The Social-Emotional Assets and Resilience Scales (SEARS) were developed at the University of Oregon and are sold by Psychological Assessment Resources (PAR). They measure responsibility, self regulation, social competence, and empathy, and contain both long and short forms for K-12 students, parents, and teachers. The forms are often used for progress monitoring and program evaluations. PAR sells the forms in English and Spanish, and they have also been translated into Chinese and Portuguese.

The Flourishing Children Project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, has constructed 20 scales based on a nationally representative sample to measure different dimensions of personal flourishing. The scales are open access, and many offer versions for both adolescents (ages 12-18) and parents. The scales fall into 5 categories: Personal Flourishing, Flourishing in School and Work, Flourishing in Relationships, Relationship Skills, and Environmental Stewardship.

The Bridge-Positive Youth Development measure is an open-source, 40-item Likert survey initially validated using responses from 7-18-year-old  children in a community-based after school program in Denver, CO. It uses a resilience-based framework incorporating the 5 Cs: Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring/Compassion. 

The Metacognitive Skills Teacher Questionnaire is an 8-item teacher-respondent assessment of children's metacognitive abilities.

The Multidimensional Self-Concept Sale (MSCS) is an assessment of self concept intended for use with students in grades 5-12. The MSCS is comprised of 6 subscales, (Social, Competence, Affect, Academic, Family, Physical) each containing 25 items, for a total of 150 items within the assessment.