When alumni reflect on their college experiences, few recall their course schedules and weekly assignments. Rather, it is the interactions and relationships they had with their peers and faculty that confirm whether or not they consider their time at university as a positive college experience. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) has worked with a variety of organizations to gather data on these positive experiences and student success. Using the data collected from NSSEs surveys, I tested my hypothesis developed through my own literary analysis to confirm whether or not students who claim to have negative or less interactions with peers and faculty have a low sense of belonging at their attended university.
NSSE addresses Belonging directly in their student survey through three agree/disagree “I feel…” statements. These statements ask students if they feel comfortable being themselves at their university, feel valued by their university, and feel as though they are part of a community at their university. The survey also has students rate their interactions with other students and staff on a scale of one to four, one being never and four being always. NSSE divided these interaction ratings into four areas: student-faculty interactions (SF), collaborative learning (CL), discussions with individuals of diverse backgrounds (DD), and effective teaching practices (ET). I ran a linear regression model with the “I feel…” statements as my dependent variables and the interaction ratings as my independent variable. To ensure an accurate measurement of the correlations, I gathered data from the “I feel…” statements as individual statements and ran an ordinal regression.
My findings regarding the first agree/disagree statement “I feel comfortable being myself at this institution” is that 24.7% of the variance in the dependent variable is explained by the model. There was a statistically significant result of .001, with 295 scores invalid and 1,167 scores valid as well as a mixed result within the goodness of fit. The most significant aspects of the independent variable include never or often preparing for exams with other students, never or often talking about career plans with a faculty member, believing teachers clearly explained course goals and requirements, believing teachers provide strong feedback, believing a professor did not teach in a way that aligns with how a student prefers to learn, and having occasional discussions with people from other political views and different sexual orientations.
Regarding the agree/disagree statement of “I feel valued by this institution”, similar results were found with 29.6% of the variance in the dependent variable explained by the model and a statistically significant result of .001. There were 295 invalid scores, 1,167 valid scores. The most significant aspects of the independent variable include working with other students on course projects and assignments, never or sometimes preparing for exams with other students, not talking about career plans with faculty members, never or sometimes working with faculty members outside of coursework, believing that course sessions were not organized and that professors did not review and summarize key concepts, believing there was very little teaching that aligned with a student’s preferred learning, and sometimes having discussions with individuals of a different sexual orientation.
The final agree/disagree statement of the dependent variable is “I feel like a part of the community at this institution.” For this regression analysis, 298 scores were invalid, and 1,164 scores were valid. This model explains 30% of the variance in the dependent variable, with mixed results in the goodness of fit and a statistically significant result of .001. Significant results include not preparing for exams with other students, not talking to professors about career plans, not working with faculty on activities other than coursework, believing course sessions were a little organized, believing some professors provided helpful feedback and explained their expectations and criteria in advance, believing very few professors reviewed and summarized key concepts and taught in a way that aligned with the student’s preferred learning, and sometimes or never having discussions with people of other political views and sexual orientations.
Overall, throughout the three different ordinal regressions ran, four aspects of the independent variable are consistent amongst all agree/disagree statements for belonging. These are rating never for preparing for exams by discussing or working through course material with other students (CLstudy=1), rating never for talking about career plans with a faculty member (SFcareer=1), rating very little for teaching in a way that aligns with a student’s preferred learning (ETprefer=1), and rating that they sometimes had discussions with individuals of a different sexual orientation (DDsexorient=2).
These results state that a low sense of belonging is rooted from a lack of diversity in teaching styles and preparation in classrooms, a lack of diversity in sexual orientation amongst students, and, perhaps the most impactful cause, a lack of communication and career advice from teachers and a lack of students seeking this communication and advise. This data implies that to improve a sense of belonging amongst students, an improvement between faculty-student relationships and communication is needed. A student may not perceive any positive outcomes from strengthening their communications to their professors. A teacher may not see the impact they have on an individual student out of a lecture hall of hundreds. Still, not seeing the value of these relationships does not decrease the necessity for them. If you ask any graduated student who says they felt they belonged at their university who their favorite professor was, they would have an answer. The goal is to increase the amount of students who have an answer.
