Sense of Community in Early Adolescents: Validating the Scale of Sense of Community in Early Adolescents. (February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Prati, Gabriele; Tomasetto, Carlo; Cicognani, Elvira
• Is Part Of: Journal of early adolescence. Volume 41:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 309
• Page End: 331
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Subjects: sense of community -- early adolescence -- adolescence -- scale -- validation -- reliability; Adolescence -- United States -- Periodicals; Adolescent -- Periodicals; Adolescence -- États-Unis -- Périodiques; 305.235
• DOI: 10.1177/0272431620912469
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0272-4316

Abstract

Psychological sense of community among early adolescents has been investigated using instruments developed for adolescents/adults or ad hoc scales. The aim was to contribute to the validation of a scale of Sense of Community in Early Adolescents (SoC-EA) using a 3-year longitudinal study. Participants were 576 Italian students attending middle schools. Participants filled out a questionnaire 3 times, in the second term of their first, second, and third middle school years. Results provided support for a five-factor model and both bifactor and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) models had excellent fit. The SoC-EA can be scored according to each subscale or a total score. In addition, the SoC-EA demonstrated (a) longitudinal measurement invariance across the middle school years; (b) good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and test-retest correlation across the 3 years; and (c) adequate construct validity. Findings support the use of the SoC-EA to measure sense of community in early adolescence.