Finding Belonging: The Search for Comprehensive Measurements of Student Belonging in Math
We integrated the definitions gathered from multiple papers on belonging in math and academics with the responses of our panel of students, educators, and researchers to construct a comprehensive definition of belonging. After reviewing multiple different studies linked to belonging, we cataloged 24 different scales and collected potential items from our panel. These 299 scale items were pooled and categorized according to whether they should be excluded (e.g., were not assessing belonging, were badly worded) or they successfully captured 1) self-perceptions of belonging vs. 2) meta-perceptions – whether the respondent thought others (e.g., friends, classmates, teachers) saw them as belonging across four different contexts (in math generally, in math classes, in past experiences, in future situations). Most of the remaining 124 items assessed self-perceptions of either belonging in math class or math generally. Meta-perceptions, perceptions of past or future experiences, and reversed items (e.g., items capturing experience of exclusion) were under- represented. Due to the under-representation of items, balancing the scale would require the generation of over 300 additional items. Accordingly, we constructed a 34-item scale grounded in items that matched the five aspects of the definition above and drawing from influential past scales (e.g., Good et al., 2012, Goodenow, 1993) that could be varied by perspective (self vs. meta) and context (general, class, past, future) for further empirical testing.