Formal and informal peer-to-peer support through advice plays an important role in enhancing students' experiences and ensuring their success in higher education. For international students who often face social and cultural challenges adapting to their new university environment, direct and authentic guidance from peers can be vital in helping…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the levels of the sense of community among students enrolled in online student communities at Anadolu University Open Education System (OES), as well as their motivations for joining these communities and their expectations. Design/methodology/approach: An explanatory sequential design incorporating mixed…

Psychological and social adjustment and academic success in post-secondary institutions are supported by a sense of belonging to a social group and having meaningful relationships with other students, staff, and faculty members. This exploratory study used a qualitative approach to investigate post-secondary students' sense of belonging in the…

Increasingly students from diverse backgrounds are attending university, many from contexts where accessing higher education is the exception rather than the norm. We know that these learners often have a lower sense of belonging when compared to their second or third generation peers but how this is experienced at an individual level remains…

The purpose of this qualitative meta-narrative was to explore the experiences of Black college women with natural hair on a predominantly white (PWI) college campus using intersectionality theory. Six self-identified Black college women with natural hair participated in this study. Three major findings emerged from this study: (a) interpersonal…

Using data on incoming freshmen from 2018-2020 at the University of California, Davis, we analyze whether California students from private or charter high schools, compared to students from traditional public schools, arrive at college with a higher sense of expected belonging, more positive feelings, or higher expectations about adopting positive…

In 2020, staff at Griffith University, Australia used a best practice and evidence-informed orientation event framework to create the University's first series of fully online, university-wide orientation sessions. The PECS design framework was created to ensure that orientation events at Griffith focused on developing students' sense of belonging…

Since its development in 2006, the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE) V3.0 instrument with six constructs indicated by 31 items has been a popular tool used in engineering education research in the United States. However, there has been lack of validity and reliability evidence in the literature beyond its initial…

In a world characterised by supercomplexity, in which higher education (HE) is in the grip of neoliberal market forces (Barnett, 2000), it is incumbent upon participants in this sector to ask; what does it mean to belong, and to what? 'Belonging' has become a buzzword used by institutions to seemingly demonstrate how they seek to include students…

Significant concerns have been raised about supplying sufficient numbers of qualified and experienced information and communications technology (ICT) workers to meet the ongoing demands of the industry. This paper explores how professional identity and self-interest shape the career choices of ICT students. In-depth semi-structured interviews were…

This study investigates the association between mentoring and future expectations of youth in residential placements in Israel, and how family engagement during care and sense of belonging mediate this relationship. The participants included 213 adolescents (16-19 years old). Structural equation modeling revealed that mentoring contributed to the…

University students often seek affiliation with student-led, content-based organizations. We explored student expectations and perceived benefits from affiliation in terms of perceived cohesion. We asked members from three student organizations to provide self-reported data about their expectations from affiliation, reasons for staying or leaving,…

School alienation is a complex phenomenon that has recently attracted considerable attention from psychologists because of the negative consequences that may result from it, such as poor academic performance, learning difficulties, school disengagement, behavioral problems, and withdrawal from the educational system, which interfere with students'…

Online collaborative learning is a complex process as it requires thoughtful and pedagogical considerations regarding the design, implementation, and assessment. To understand online collaborative learning, it is critical to involve stakeholders' perspectives of their lived experiences. A qualitative case study was selected to carry out the…

Living with a chronic health condition in the home can have a debilitating effect on the psychosocial and psychoaffective wellbeing of the entire family. This is particularly the case for healthy school aged siblings. This research investigated the perceptions and experiences of at-school support for well-siblings to evaluate its effectiveness in…