The concept of belonging within society is important to all human beings but this is enhanced in school settings, particularly amongst adolescents, who are negotiating their place in the community. School connectedness is linked to improved outcomes for young people. This research updates a measure of school connectedness with a participatory methodology involving adolescent co-production. Given our desire to develop a questionnaire that is easy to administer in schools and which reliably measures the level of school connectedness of students, it was important to include the voice of young people. The team tested a questionnaire, discussed the results, evaluated the question wording and structure, and developed a revised version of a belonging survey that is meaningful to young people. The resulting questionnaire was administered in two schools and the data shared with those schools. This paper discusses the validity of the questionnaire and uses statistical analysis to prove that the new version can be used to measure the level of school connectedness in individual schools and across schools. This will be a useful instrument for schools to use on a regular basis to measure the level of belonging within their schools, at whole school, year group, or class level.
Costley et al. (Wed,) studied this question.