The Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale has been used widely to measure adolescent perceptions of sense of school belonging in research investigating associations between the relational quality of educational contexts and motivational and achievement outcomes. Previous research examining the factor structure of the PSSM scale consistently identifies a factor named perception of rejection that consists of only negatively worded items. This study extends previous research by considering potential method effects associated with negatively worded items. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of a diverse U.S. high school sample ( N = 890) identified three substantive factors— identification and participation in school, perception of fitting in among peers, and generalized connection to teachers. Our investigation determined the presence of method effects in this scale, and such method effects are best represented with a common negative wording factor.
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