Short Scale Affiliation to Own Degree Program (ZeS)

1. Abstract

The Short Scale Affiliation to Own Degree Program (known in its original German development as the Kurzskala Zugehörigkeit zum eigenen Studiengang, abbreviated as ZeS) is an 8-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to assess students’ perceived belonging, social connectedness, and emotional identification with their specific academic major or degree program. Developed in response to the growing need for economic instruments capable of evaluating academic integration across diverse pedagogical delivery modes—including face-to-face, hybrid, and remote or online tertiary education—the ZeS captures a multidimensional construct rooted in classic social and educational psychology paradigms. Rather than measuring generalized institutional attachment to an overarching university, the ZeS specifically captures affiliation at the proximal, departmental, or degree-program level.

The instrument comprises two correlated yet distinct subscales: Well-Being (Wohlbefinden; five items), which gauges feelings of interpersonal safety, peer acceptance, and collaborative comfort within the degree cohort; and Pride (Stolz; three items), which evaluates affective identification, positive valence in self-disclosing one’s field of study, and public representation of the academic program. Items are rated on a symmetric 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 6 (Strongly agree), eliminating a neutral midpoint to minimize central tendency bias. Psychometric evaluation across two independent student samples (Item Selection Sample: N = 97; Evaluation Sample: N = 110) demonstrated robust internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients reaching α = .79 to .81 for Well-Being and α = .81 for Pride across both cohorts. Principal axis factor analyses with oblique rotation corroborated the hypothesized two-dimensional structure, accounting for 50% to 55% of the total variance. Convergent validity was established via meaningful positive associations with dispositional pride, discriminant validity was verified across the Big Five personality dimensions, and criterion validity was demonstrated through moderate associations with global life satisfaction. Requiring approximately one minute to complete via computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (CASI), the ZeS provides higher education researchers and administrators with a brief, empirically validated measure of academic micro-climate connectedness.

2. Keywords

Sense of belonging, degree program affiliation, higher education, academic well-being, academic pride, student retention, institutional integration, psychological measurement, scale validation, exploratory factor analysis, online learning environments, university students.

3. Authors

The Short Scale Affiliation to Own Degree Program (ZeS) was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated in 2021 by a research team of psychometricians and educational psychologists in Germany specializing in higher education diagnostics and social relationships in educational settings. Development and open-access dissemination were completed through standard psychological repository documentation (including Open Science Framework protocols and institutional survey development initiatives) to facilitate broad empirical application in university evaluation and academic engagement research.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the ZeS is to provide an efficient, psychometrically sound measurement tool that captures undergraduate and graduate students’ emotional and social affiliation with their specific field of study. In modern higher education research, the construct of student belonging has emerged as a cornerstone of student retention, psychological resilience, academic achievement, and mental health. However, preexisting measurement instruments in the tertiary education domain—such as the instruments developed by Hoffman et al. (2002) or national quality indicators like the Australian Student Experience Survey (Social Research Centre, 2021)—predominantly focus on macro-level institutional affiliation (i.e., belonging to the university as a whole) and are predominantly available only in English. Institutional measures often fail to capture the immediate, day-to-day relational dynamics that occur within specific academic departments, seminars, and cohort groups.

The ZeS fills this critical methodological gap by shifting the psychometric lens to the meso- and micro-levels of academic life: the individual’s specific degree program (Studiengang). Academic degree programs serve as primary socialization hubs where students form peer networks, develop professional identities, collaborate on intellectual tasks, and experience departmental climate. A student may feel alienated by a massive university administration yet experience profound camaraderie and professional validation within their specific major, or vice versa.

From an applied perspective, the ZeS is engineered for:

• Comparative Instructional Research: Evaluating how differing delivery modalities—such as fully digital distance learning, hybrid flipped classrooms, and traditional face-to-face instruction—influence social integration and psychological connectedness among matriculated students.
• Departmental Quality Assurance: Identifying specific academic degree tracks that suffer from social disconnection, low peer cohesion, or diminished professional identification, allowing academic deans and student affairs professionals to implement targeted community-building interventions.
• Attrition and Mental Health Modeling: Serving as an explanatory covariate in longitudinal studies examining student attrition, burnout, academic disengagement, and depressive symptomatology, where a deficient sense of belonging operates as an established psychosocial risk factor.

Because the scale contains only eight items and requires approximately 60 seconds to complete, it incurs virtually zero respondent burden, making it exceptionally well-suited for high-frequency pulse surveys, longitudinal panel studies, and expansive multi-cohort institutional surveys.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the ZeS is Affiliation to One’s Own Degree Program (Zugehörigkeit zum eigenen Studiengang). Drawing from classical socio-psychological definitions, the construct represents a student’s psychological need and subjective experience of feeling emotionally and socially connected to their specific course of study, identifying with its academic community, and experiencing authentic well-being within its social ecosystem.

Theoretical and empirical analyses conducted during the scale’s development established that this affiliation does not operate as a strictly unidimensional construct, but rather crystallizes into two distinct, correlated psychological dimensions:

1. Well-Being within the Degree Program (Wohlbefinden innerhalb des eigenen Studiengangs)

The Well-Being dimension encompasses five items tapping into the interpersonal, relational, and emotional comfort experienced in the social environment of the degree program. It assesses the extent to which a student feels accepted, socially embedded, and psychologically safe among fellow cohort members. Key facets of this dimension include:

• Collaborative Comfort: Experiencing positive affect and ease when engaging in academic group work or collaborative projects with departmental peers (e.g., Item 2).
• Friendship and Relational Proximity: Cultivating meaningful, friendly interpersonal connections within the student cohort rather than viewing peers merely as functional acquaintances (e.g., Item 3).
• Informal and Private Self-Disclosure: Engaging in mutual exchange regarding private matters, personal concerns, and life beyond academic assignments, which indicates deep social bonding (e.g., Item 5).
• Event and Climate Comfort: Experiencing positive affective states when attending degree-specific events, departmental gatherings, or social mixers (e.g., Item 7).
• Perceived Peer Acceptance: Harboring the cognitive and emotional conviction that one is respected, welcomed, and validated by other students within the major (e.g., Item 8).

2. Pride Regarding the Degree Program (Stolz gegenüber dem eigenen Studiengang)

The Pride dimension consists of three items reflecting the affective and identity-relevant evaluation of the study program. It captures the degree to which enrollment in the program enhances the individual’s self-worth, serves as an aspirational marker of self-concept, and stimulates enthusiastic outward representation. Key manifestations include:

• Social Representation and Sharing: Eagerness and intrinsic willingness to discuss and showcase one’s field of study when queried by external social contacts, family, or strangers (e.g., Item 1).
• Internalized Collective Esteem: Experiencing authentic pride in being an active member and representative of the specific degree track (e.g., Item 4).
• Affective Elevation during Disclosure: Experiencing an acute surge of pride and self-worth when disclosing one’s major to others, indicating strong positive identification with the academic domain (e.g., Item 6).

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the ZeS is anchored in three primary theoretical paradigms within psychological and educational science: the Belongingness Hypothesis, Social Identity Theory, and Models of Student Integration.

The Belongingness Hypothesis

According to the seminal formulation by Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary (1995), the “need to belong” is a fundamental, universal human motivation characterized by a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships. To satisfy this drive, two criteria must be satisfied: (a) frequent, affectively pleasant or neutral interactions with a few other people, and (b) these interactions must take place in the context of a temporally stable and enduring framework of mutual concern and caring. The ZeS directly operationalizes these criteria within the academic setting: the Well-Being subscale captures the presence of supportive, stable interactions and mutual caring, while the Pride subscale reflects the emotional value derived from inclusion within this stable collective.

Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization

Formulated by Henri Tajfel and John Turner (1979, 1986), Social Identity Theory posits that an individual’s self-concept is shaped substantially by their perceived membership in relevant social groups. In higher education, a student’s academic discipline or specific degree program serves as a primary social in-group. Identification with this in-group generates collective self-esteem, which manifests emotionally as academic pride. When students strongly categorize themselves as members of a respected discipline, external disclosure of their major activates group-derived self-worth, motivating positive outward representation and reinforcing psychological affiliation.

Tinto’s Student Integration Model and Self-Determination Theory

In educational sociology and psychology, Vincent Tinto’s (1975, 1993) longitudinal model of institutional departure highlights that academic persistence is contingent upon successful integration into both the academic and social systems of the institution. While academic integration involves meeting structural performance benchmarks, social integration involves informal peer-group interactions, semi-formal extracurricular participation, and positive interactions with faculty. The ZeS measures the core subjective output of social integration at the degree level. Concurrently, Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) posits that the psychological need for relatedness—feeling connected to, cared for, and belonging with significant others—is essential for autonomous motivation and psychological vitality. When the degree environment satisfies relatedness needs, students experience elevated subjective well-being and reduced burnout.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ZeS was evaluated comprehensively across content, factorial, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related dimensions using two successive empirical investigations.

Content Validity

Initial item generation utilized a bottom-up lexical approach combined with student focus group consultations and theoretical frameworks on educational social relationships (e.g., Hagenauer & Raufelder, 2020). Items were constructed to avoid double negatives, linguistic ambiguity, and convoluted syntax. A pretest confirmed broad comprehensibility. The conceptual coverage of belonging through the distinct lenses of well-being and pride aligns with empirical literature outside higher education; for instance, Kröske (2020) and Hommerich and Tiefenbach (2018) verified moderate-to-strong linkages between subjective well-being and community belonging in secondary education and civic environments, while Hinding et al. (2012) substantiated the intrinsic coupling of collective pride and organizational affiliation.

Convergent Validity

Convergent construct validity was evaluated in the Evaluation Sample (N = 110) by correlating ZeS subscale scores with the Pride subscale of the German-translated Dispositional Positive Emotions Scale (DPES; Shiota et al., 2006). The ZeS subscales exhibited statistically significant, moderate positive correlations with general dispositional pride:

• Well-Being × General Pride: r = .33, p < .001
• Program Pride × General Pride: r = .26, p < .01

Because the ZeS Pride subscale evaluates domain-specific academic pride rather than a generalized personality trait of self-aggrandizement, moderate (rather than near-unity) correlations were theoretically anticipated, confirming convergent alignment without conceptual redundancy.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established against the Five-Factor Model of personality measured via the ultra-short German BFI-2-XS (Danner et al., 2016):

• Openness to Experience: Correlated near zero with both Well-Being (r = -.04, p = ns) and Pride (r = .005, p = ns), demonstrating complete independence from broad intellectual curiosity.
• Extraversion: Exhibited negligible, non-significant correlations with Well-Being (r = .12, p = ns) and Pride (r = .04, p = ns), proving that degree affiliation is not merely a proxy for baseline social sociability.
• Conscientiousness: Showed small, modest associations with Well-Being (r = .21, p < .05) and Pride (r = .16, p = ns), consistent with evidence that conscientious students experience more orderly, positive social reinforcement in academic groups (McCrae & Costa, 1991).
• Neuroticism: Displayed an inverse correlation with Well-Being (r = -.25, p < .05) and a negative trend with Pride (r = -.15, p = ns). This fits clinical observations (e.g., Brown, 2007; Kokko et al., 2015) that high trait anxiety and negative affectivity impede informal peer integration.
• Agreeableness: Correlated moderately with Well-Being (r = .30, p < .01) and Pride (r = .21, p < .05), reflecting that prosocial tendencies facilitate cooperative cohort dynamics.

Criterion Validity

Criterion-related validity was examined against global life satisfaction using the German version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Janke & Glöckner-Rist, 2012). Both subscales demonstrated robust, statistically significant predictive associations with life satisfaction:

• Well-Being × Life Satisfaction: r = .29, p < .01
• Pride × Life Satisfaction: r = .32, p < .001

These findings substantiate the empirical reality that social and emotional integration within one’s immediate educational track constitutes a salient predictor of overall psychological flourishing during young adulthood.

8. Reliability

The internal consistency of the ZeS was evaluated separately for both dimensions across two distinct empirical student cohorts using Cronbach’s alpha (α).

Reliability Estimates

Despite the brevity of the subscales (five items and three items, respectively), both dimensions consistently demonstrated reliability coefficients at or near the conventional .80 benchmark for research scales. According to psychometric testing theory, short scales typically suffer from attenuated alpha values because Cronbach’s alpha is mathematically sensitive to test length. Achieving alpha levels of .79 to .81 with only 3 to 5 items confirms high item homogeneity and robust internal consistency without excessive item redundancy.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent dimensionality of the ZeS was established through a two-phase Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) architecture implemented in the R statistical computing environment (R Core Team, 2020) using packages psych (Revelle, 2021) and GPArotation (Bernaards & Jennrich, 2005).

Phase 1: Initial Item Pool and Dimensional Reduction

Item selection began with an initial pool of 24 candidate items administered to the Item Selection Sample (N = 97; mean age = 22.0, SD = 1.98, range 19–33 years). Data were analyzed via Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) extraction. Because latent affiliation dimensions were expected to be intercorrelated, an oblique rotation method (Direct Oblimin) was specified. Horn’s Parallel Analysis initially suggested three latent factors accounting for 38% of total variance. However, Factor 3 exhibited very weak inter-factor correlations (r = .09 with Factor 1; r = -.07 with Factor 2) and was characterized exclusively by items with severe cross-loadings. Factor 3 was therefore rejected as statistically unstable and theoretically uninterpretable.

Items were subsequently screened based on psychometric criteria: retention required primary factor loadings ≥ .49, negligible secondary loadings (cross-loadings ≤ .23), and an item difficulty index (P) between 10 and 90. Eight optimized items were retained across two factors: five items representing Well-Being and three items representing Pride. A re-run PAF on these eight items accounted for 55% of the total variance, with an inter-factor correlation of r = .22.

Phase 2: Confirmatory Exploration in the Evaluation Sample

The finalized 8-item instrument was independently examined in the Evaluation Sample (N = 110; 76% female, 23% male, 1% non-binary; mean age = 22.0, SD = 3.04, range 18–41 years). A replicating PAF with Direct Oblimin rotation confirmed the 2-factor solution (Horn’s parallel analysis once again indicated two retained dimensions). The two factors accounted for 50% of the variance, with an inter-factor correlation of r = .39.

Note: Loadings are presented as [Sample 1 / Sample 2]. Bold font highlights primary target loadings. h² = communality estimates.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Short Scale Affiliation to Own Degree Program (ZeS – Kurzskala Zugehörigkeit zum eigenen Studiengang).
• Target Population: Matriculated university students across any academic discipline or degree tier (bachelor, master, diploma, state examination) who have completed at least one semester of university study (recruitment restricted to semester ≥ 2).
• Assessment Type: Quantitative self-report psychometric rating scale; computer-assisted self-administered interviewing (CASI) format.
• Item Count: 8 positively phrased items (no reverse-coded items).
• Subscale Allocation:
  • Well-Being (Wohlbefinden): 5 items (Items 2, 3, 5, 7, 8).
  • Pride (Stolz): 3 items (Items 1, 4, 6).
• Response Scale: 6-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Stimme überhaupt nicht zu (Strongly disagree)
  • 2 = Stimme nicht zu (Disagree)
  • 3 = Stimme eher nicht zu (Somewhat disagree)
  • 4 = Stimme eher zu (Somewhat agree)
  • 5 = Stimme zu (Agree)
  • 6 = Stimme voll und ganz zu (Strongly agree)
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 minute.
• Scoring and Aggregation:
  • Because factor analytic evaluations proved that Well-Being and Pride form two correlated yet distinct constructs, the authors advise against calculating an unweighted total composite score.
  • Subscale scores are calculated as the unweighted sum (or arithmetic mean) of the assigned items: Well-Being ranges from 5 to 30 (sum) or 1.0 to 6.0 (mean); Pride ranges from 3 to 18 (sum) or 1.0 to 6.0 (mean).
  • Sum scores should only be computed for participants who answered all items without missing values.
  • Standardized z-scores may be derived to facilitate inter-individual or inter-departmental benchmarking.
• Clinical and Diagnostic Limitation: As an 8-item short scale optimized for group-level surveys and institutional research, the ZeS is not intended for individual clinical diagnostics or high-stakes academic selection.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Short Scale Affiliation to Own Degree Program (ZeS) was developed and validated in 2021. The scale was established as an open-access scientific diagnostic instrument to support higher education pedagogy and educational research. The items, scoring guidelines, and psychometric documentation are released under open-science principles for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical evaluation, and university quality assurance without licensing fees. Researchers and institutional analysts may utilize the instrument provided appropriate citation is given to the original instrument documentation. Commercial adaptations, proprietary test software bundling, or monetized diagnostic applications require formal authorization from the original authors.

12. References

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13. Items of the Scale