Sense of belonging in higher education students : an Australian longitudinal study from 2013 to 2019
Journal article
Crawford, Joseph, Allen, Kelly, Sanders, Taren Grant, Baumeister, Roy, Parker, Philip David, Saunders, Cassandra and Tice, Dianne. (2024). Sense of belonging in higher education students : an Australian longitudinal study from 2013 to 2019. Studies in Higher Education. 49(3), pp. 395-409. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2023.2238006
Authors | Crawford, Joseph, Allen, Kelly, Sanders, Taren Grant, Baumeister, Roy, Parker, Philip David, Saunders, Cassandra and Tice, Dianne |
---|---|
Abstract | Student sense of belonging is a current challenge to higher education providers, with consistently declining ratings in national surveys. For universities globally, this is a concern linked to student attrition, student satisfaction, and student success. Importantly, low sense of belonging is typically associated with non-traditional learners, and building strategies to solve this challenge is essential for institutions to build equitable learning environments. This study seeks to understand the causal factors that predict when a student will belong using longitudinal data. Using the Australian national student experience survey data (n = 1,159,768 undergraduate and postgraduate students between 2013 and 2019), this study examines the predictors of a sense of belonging testing the accuracy of four machine learning models. The findings indicate overall educational experience, connection to students outside of class, and support to settle were key predictors, with skill development and curriculum supports a lesser predictor of a sense of belonging. Interestingly, identity and individual differences ratings seemed to have less importance than student experience factors. Implications for higher education policy developers and curriculum writers are considered. |
Keywords | Belongingness; machine learning; student experience; predictive modelling; educational experience |
Year | 01 Jan 2024 |
Journal | Studies in Higher Education |
Journal citation | 49 (3), pp. 395-409 |
Publisher | Routledge |
ISSN | 1470-174X |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2023.2238006 |
Web address (URL) | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2023.2238006 |
Open access | Open access |
Research or scholarly | Research |
Page range | 395-409 |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 21 Jul 2023 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 13 Jul 2023 |
Deposited | 03 Jul 2024 |
Additional information | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group |
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published | |
Place of publication | United Kingdom |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/90qq4/sense-of-belonging-in-higher-education-students-an-australian-longitudinal-study-from-2013-to-2019
Download files
Publisher's version
OA_Sanders_2024_Sense_of_belonging_in_higher_education.pdf | |
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | |
File access level: Open |
19
total views18
total downloads2
views this month7
downloads this month