This paper presents a conceptual framework of spatial belonging. The aim is to enrich our conceptual understanding of space and belonging in higher education, with a provisional spatial belonging framework for researchers and practitioners to critically reflect on the different ways in which higher education spaces can facilitate and shape…

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the new-new-norm in a post-pandemic learning environment. There is a growing number of university students using AI like ChatGPT and Bard to support their academic experience. Much of the AI in higher education research to date has focused on academic integrity and matters of authorship; yet, there may be…

In the context of rapidly growing numbers of university students reporting that they have experienced mental health problems, this paper argues that doing research as an undergraduate can contribute to student well-being. Although the benefits of undergraduate research are well documented, underlying reasons for its efficacy on positive student…

This study explores how master's students perceive their learning experiences and build their identities as postgraduate learners. It also investigates how these students' perceptions affect their aspirations regarding academic careers. By applying the Community of Practice (CoP) framework, this study focuses on three dimensions of master's…

Educational researchers have provided evidence that students who see themselves as valued members of their university (institutional belongingness) tend to have higher academic performance than students with a weaker sense of institutional belongingness. The current research draws on social cognitive theory to inspect two mechanisms that might…

An academic learning environment has a significant role in shaping students' learning experience, scholarly identity construction, and socialization into academic culture. The aim of the present study was to understand the experiences of PhD students from their learning environment and the challenges and problems they may face. This case study was…

This article offers a rethinking of a fundamental area of higher education research and practice: the concept of belonging. Extending the considerable international research attending to belonging, we suggest that normative narratives often contain a number of omissions. Such omissions include a consideration of the experiences of those students…

Students' sense of belonging is known to be strongly associated with academic achievement and a successful life at university. To achieve a comprehensive understanding of belonging, this study collected data via the 10 Words Question. Responses from 426 participants were analysed using a sequence of analytic methods including In Vivo coding,…

A notable trend in UK universities has been the introduction of new collaborative learning spaces for postgraduate students, which provide space for students to interact with each other, study together, and collaborate. However, it is unclear what definition of 'collaboration' is driving the creation of these spaces and the types of activities…

Notwithstanding the growing importance of university-business cooperation (UBC), our understanding of education-driven UBC remains nebulous, so does our knowledge of facilitators of academic engagement in such cooperation. This research explores psychological facilitators underlying academic engagement with business in education-driven activities…

Research on intercultural interactions in higher education focuses on measuring student attitudes and degrees of cosmopolitanism, but there is little theoretically and empirically informed effort to understand 1) the nature of these campus interactions as ordinary, embodied, and routine, and 2) the cultural and social impact of campus…

The focus of the research was students' perceptions of whether joint honours degrees represented a sound student learning experience and led to good academic and employability outcomes. In this minority mode of study for the United Kingdom, students study two academic subjects, rather than the more usual single subject. The qualitative methodology…

This research considers a variety of independent variables to determine the school-based factors that can predict alumni giving. Data for this study are gathered from a top-tier liberal arts college located in the US with an impressive history of alumni giving and a robust endowment fund. The findings indicate that cultural components of the…

The previous two decades have seen much improvement in the first-year experience of students attending university. Yet for a significant proportion of students, coping with university study remains challenging. This is particularly the case for those students entering university with low tertiary admission scores. Although the higher education…

Given the challenging transition from secondary school into higher education, this quasi-experimental study measured the effects of a pre-academic programme (i.e. before starting at university) on student-faculty interactions, student-peer interactions, sense of belonging, and first-year academic performance. Fifty-eight first-year students…