THE CLASSROOM COMMUNITY SCALE IN A FACE-TO-FACE UNIVERSITY CONTEXT: FACTORIAL STRUCTURE AND CONVERGENT/DIVERGENT VALIDITY

The Sense of Community (SC) in the university context relates to academic achievement, social par ticipation, and well-being. One of the most common tools to measure student SC in the university context is the Classroom Community Scale (CCS), consisting of two subscales: Connectedness and Learning. This 2-factor structure has not been confirmed in face-to-face courses yet. The present investigation was aimed to verify its factorial structure and convergent/divergent validity in face-to-face university courses. The original 2-factor structure was partially confirmed via the explorative structural equation model with the data collected from 420 university students. The two resulting factors had internal consistency. More over, they showed good convergent/divergent validity in relation to a different scale of SC and a scale of perceived social support ‒‒ a construct similar to, but distinct from, SC ‒‒ investigated in a group of 175 students. The CCS is an efficient tool for designing, monitoring, and evaluating face-to-face university courses.