Internal consistency and reliability of the students’ perception of school climate scale (PACE-33)

Abstract

The multitude of benefits that a positive school climate brings to the students shows the importance of evaluating this construct appropriately. However, there is still no valid and reliable measure adjusted to the Spanish academic context that evaluates the most relevant aspects of the school climate. To overcome this limitation, the students’ perception of school climate scale (PACE-33) was designed, an instrument that evaluates the perceived school climate in adolescent students. The aim of this work is to corroborate the nine-factor structure of the PACE-33 found in the previous exploratory study by means of confirmatory factor analysis, in addition to analyzing its internal consistency reliability. A total of 654 students (M_age = 15,41 years, SD = 1,76) from eight schools in the Basque Country participated in the research. The model of nine correlated factors proposed presents an optimal fit (RMSEA= ,035_{(,031 - ,039)}; NNFI = ,919; NFI= ,956; CFI = ,962), as well as appropriate internal consistency reliability indices. In conclusion, the PACE-33 scale allows us to know in a valid and reliable way the perception of the students about the main aspects that favour the school climate in adolescence.