Cross-cultural validity and measurement invariance of the Student Personal Perception of Classroom Climate Scale (SPPCC).

Abstract

Among school psycho-social factors with considerable effect on student outcomes are both school and classroom climate. Because how students perceive the classroom climate strongly predicts achievement, measuring classroom climate gains importance and the need for testing the existing results across cultures persists. In this study, we assessed the validity and measurement invariance of the Turkish adaptation of the Student Personal Perception of Classroom Climate Scale (SPPCC) developed in English (US). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and measurement invariance (MI) analyses by sex were performed on 629 students’ data. CFA results confirmed the factorial structure of the SPPCC. Results of the MI analyses showed that the SPPCC measures the same construct for females and males in a non-English context. Latent mean comparisons revealed girls perceived the classroom climate more positively than boys. We concluded that this study in the Turkish context is a further step in developing evidence of the extent to which SPCC provides psychometrically sound scores.