Measuring the impact of students' social relations and values : validation of the Social-Relational Support for Education instrument

A significant body of literature attests to the influence of social contexts on students' engagement with school. A review of this literature led to the construction of a self-report instrument designed to measure Social-Relational Support for Education (SRSE). The conceptual framework underlying the SRSE instrument focuses on the factors that can potentially boost student engagement: these include young people's relationships with peers, teachers, and parents. Specifically, the SRSE seeks to measure young people's perceptions of the education-related values espoused by those to whom they relate most closely, as well as their sense of belonging at school. The psychometric properties of the SRSE measure are assessed in this paper through examining the congeneric properties of each hypothesised latent factor, confirmatory factor analysis of responses to the full SRSE instrument, and invariance testing. Results indicate strong factor loadings of all items on their respective scales and excellent overall model fit. The SRSE scale presented in this paper provides an essential foundation that will allow a comprehensive examination of the relationships between students' social-relational contexts and their engagement with school.