Development and Validation of the School Environment Stress Questionnaire (SESQ): Measuring Academic-, Teacher-, and Peer-related Stress in Primary School Students

This article presents the development and validation of the School Environment Stress Questionnaire (SESQ), one of the few of its kind that allow for the assessment of this construct among primary school students. The tool measures the overall stress in the school environment and three sources of this stress related to peer relationships, teacher-student relationships, and academic stress. Two studies were conducted with Polish students aged 10 to 15 from urban and rural schools. Study 1, involving 517 students (45.3% girls), employed exploratory factor analysis, identifying a 15-item scale with three 5-item dimensions. Study 2 used confirmatory factor analysis on an independent sample of 702 students (49.3% girls) to validate the three first-order factors and a higher order model. The SESQ demonstrated high reliability, internal consistency, and robust fit indices. Measurement invariance was confirmed across gender and grades, allowing for comparison across diverse groups. Significant correlations with emotional difficulties, self-regulation, and school well-being supported the convergent validity of SESQ. The instrument provides a comprehensive measure of school-related stress and has practical applications in both research and educational settings.