Exploring the Factor Structure of a Trauma-Informed Climate Instrument for Schools

Background and Purpose: Trauma-informed (TI) approaches have proliferated across U.S. schools over the past decade, yet empirical tools to assess their organizational impact remain limited. Existing measures tend to capture the presence of TI behaviors and activities rather than organizational climate — whether staff and students actually experience the environment as safe, equitable, and relationally supportive. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of a newly developed TI climate instrument in schools as an initial step toward establishing its construct validity.

Methods: This study utilized survey data from a national convenience sample of U.S.-based school social workers (N=538) recruited through professional associations. Participants practiced across 43 states and the District of Columbia, with an average of more than 10 years of experience. Participants worked primarily in high-need schools, where an average of 63.8% of students received free or reduced lunch and 55.7% were from historically marginalized populations. The instrument was developed through a review of published TI models and expert consultation to establish face validity. It comprised three climate scales — physical and psychological safety (11 items), strengths-based, equitable focus (12 items), and trust-based, collaborative, and empowering relationships (13 items) — all items on a 5-point Likert scale. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha prior to EFA.

Results: Internal consistency was strong across the three theoretically proposed subscales (alphas: .906, .950, .944). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure was .967, indicating excellent factorability, and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (χ² = 16,684.52, df = 630, p < .001). Parallel analysis supported retaining two factors, which together explained 56.4% of the total variance. The first factor, characterized by strong loadings from items reflecting student belonging, trust-based student-staff relationships, equitable treatment, and freedom from discrimination, was interpreted as a student-centered, equity-focused climate (loadings: .314–.877). The second factor, defined by items capturing staff psychological safety, leadership transparency, staff voice, and organizational collaboration (loadings: .521–.937), was interpreted as staff psychological safety and organizational empowerment. The two factors were strongly correlated (r = .76), suggesting they may represent facets of a single higher-order construct. Communalities ranged from .308 to .705, with items assessing physical safety and student calm-down spaces showing relatively weaker representation.

Conclusions and Implications: This study provides initial evidence for the construct validity of a newly developed TI climate instrument for schools. The empirically derived two-factor structure did not fully correspond to the instrument's theoretically proposed subscales, suggesting TI school climate may be organized along two intersecting dimensions: one student-facing and equity-oriented, one staff-facing and organizationally focused. Their strong intercorrelation also points toward a potential higher-order construct that future research should examine through confirmatory factor analysis and bifactor modeling. Findings highlight the need for instrument refinement, particularly for items reflecting physical safety and regulatory support. A psychometrically sound TI climate instrument enables schools to evaluate whether TI initiatives produce meaningful change in the organizational environment for staff and students alike.