ASSESSING AND ENHANCING POSTSECONDARY STUDENTS' COURSE-LEVEL SENSE OF BELONGING: A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH ACROSS ONLINE AND FACE-TO-FACE MODALITIES
Abstract
This research addresses the critical topic of sense of belonging in higher education, focusing specifically on the course level and within the online learning context. Utilizing a quantitative approach, our study aimed to create and assess the Brief Course Belonging Scale (BCBS) for its applicability across diverse postsecondary learning environments. Conducted at a prominent US southeastern university, a psychometric investigation was undertaken. The findings affirm the unidimensional nature of BCBS data across delivery contexts, establishing convergent validity by demonstrating positive associations between BCBS scores, university-level belonging, connectedness, and academic motivation. Discriminant validity was established through minimal associations with loneliness. While detecting differential item functioning in one item, this did not compromise the validity and reliability of scores. The study concludes with psychometric implications regarding the domain-specificity of the course delivery context and recommends the administration of the BCBS to a broader, more diverse student population
Keywords:
Sense of belonging, postsecondary students, online learning, differential item functioning, higher educationDownloads
Published
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10143083Issue
Section
How to Cite
References
American Association of State Colleges and Universities. (2019). Top 10 Higher Education Policy Issues for 2019. Washington, DC: American Association of State Colleges and Universities. AACSU.
American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, & Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. AERA.
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the United States.
Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group. http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/changingcourse.pdf
Angelino, L. M., Williams, F. K., & Natvig, D. (2007). Strategies to engage online students and reduce attrition rates. Journal of Educators Online, 4(2), 1-4. https://www.thejeo.com/archive/archive/2007_42/angelino_finalpdf
Arslan, G. (2021). Psychological well-being in college students: Psychometric properties of the Brief Inventory of Thriving (BIT) and the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT). Journal of School and Educational Psychology, 1(1), 6-16. https://doi.org/10.47602/josep.v1i1.6
Arslan, G., Yıldırım, M., & Zangeneh, M. (202). Coronavirus anxiety and psychological adjustment in college students: Exploring the role of college belongingness and social media addiction. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 20, 1546–1559. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00460-4
Asparouhov, T. & Muthén, B. (2018). SRMR in Mplus (Technical Report). http://www.statmodel.com/download/SRMR2.pdf
Bandalos, D. L. (2018). Measurement theory and applications for the social sciences. Guilford Press.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (2006). Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.). Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (Vol. 5, pp. 307-337). Information Age Publishing.
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497-529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
Bautista, G. & Escofet, A. (2015). Competences for teaching and learning in an E-learning setting. In B. H. Khan & M. Ally (Eds.), International handbook of E-learning: Theoretical perspectives and researcher (Vol. 1, pp. 171-179). Routledge.
Cheung, H. Y. C., & Datu, J. A. (2022). What Personal, Social, and Contextual Factors Promote Happiness among Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder? A Review with Implications for Researchers and Practitioners. Journal of Happiness and Health, 2(1), 31–51. https://doi.org/10.47602/johah.v2i1.12
Crane, P. K., van Belle, G., & Larson, E. B. (2004). Test bias in a cognitive test: Differential item functioning in the CASI. Statistics in Medicine, 23(2), 241–256. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.1713
Decker, J. & Beltran, V. (2016). Students' sense of belonging in online classes: Does age matter? International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design, 6(3), 14-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/IJOPCD.2016070102
Delahunty, J., Jones, P. & Verenikina, I. (2014). Movers and shapers: Teaching in online environments. Linguistics and Education, 28, 54-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2014.08.004
Fornell, C. and Larcker, D.F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.2307/3151312
Francis, M. K., Wormington, S. V., & Hulleman, C. (2019). The costs of online learning: examining differences in motivation and academic outcomes in online and face-to-face community college developmental mathematics courses. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2054. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02054
Goodenow, C. (1993). The psychological sense of school membership among adolescents: Scale development and educational correlates. Psychology in the Schools, 30(1), 79-90. https://doi.org/10.1002/15206807(199301)30:1<79::AID-PITS2310300113>3.0.CO;2-X
Goodenow, C., & Grady, K. E. (1993). The relationship of school belonging and friends' values to academic motivation among urban adolescent students. Journal of Experimental Education, 62(1), 60–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1993.9943831
Gopalan, M., & Brady, S. T. (2020) College students’ sense of belonging: A National Perspective. Educational Researcher, 49(2), 134-137. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19897622
Green, Z. A. (2022). Generalized Self-Efficacy Shields on the Negative Effect of Academic Anxiety on Academic Self-Efficacy During COVID-19 Over Time: A Mixed-Method Study. Journal of School and Educational Psychology, 2(1), 44–59. https://doi.org/10.47602/josep.v2i1.17
Gunn, J. F. III, Lester, D., Haines, J., & Williams, C. L. (2012). Thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness in suicide notes. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 33(3), 178-181. https://doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000123
Hewson, E. R. F. (2018). Students’ emotional engagement, motivation and behaviour over the life of an online course: Reflections on two market research case studies. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1, 1–13, https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.472
Hoffman, M., Richmond, J., Morrow, J., & Salomone, K. (2002). Investigating “Sense of Belonging” in first-year college students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 4(3), 227–256. https://doi.org/10.2190/DRYC-CXQ9-JQ8V-HT4V
Hurtado, S., & Carter, D. F. (1997). Effects of college transition and perceptions of the campus racial climate on Latino college students' sense of belonging. Sociology of Education, 70(4), 324-345. https://doi.org/10.2307/2673270
Hussain, M., & Jones, J. M. (2021). Discrimination, diversity, and sense of belonging: Experiences of students of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(1), 63–71. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000117
Kline, R. B. (2016). Methodology in the social sciences. Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (4th ed.). Guildford Press.
Kosovich, J. J., Hulleman, C. S., Barron, K. E., & Getty, S. (2015). A practical measure of student motivation: Establishing validity evidence for the Expectancy-Value-Cost Scale in middle school. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 35(5-6), 790-816. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431614556890
Lee, R. M., & Robbins, S. (1995). Measuring Belongingness: The Social Connectedness and the Social Assurance Scales. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 42(2), 232-241. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.42.2.232
Lewis, J., Mendenhall, R., Ojiemwen, A., Thomas, M., Riopelle, C., Harwood, S. & Huntt, M. (2019). Racial microaggressions and sense of belonging at a Historically White University. American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219859613
Lorah, J. (2018). Effect size measures for multilevel models: Definition, interpretation, and TIMSS example. LargeScale Assessments in Education, 6(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-018-0061-2
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
Meade, A. W. (2010). A taxonomy of effect size measures for the differential functioning of items and scales. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(4), 728. https://doi.org/10.1037/A0018966
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2020). Mplus user’s guide (Version 8.6) [Computer software]. https://www.statmodel.com
National Center for Education Statistics (2012). Beginning postsecondary students longitudinal study. NCES.https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/bps/
Nunnally, J.C. and Bernstein, I.H. (1994). The assessment of reliability. Psychometric Theory, 3, 248-292.
Öğülmüş, K., & Vuran, S. (2021). Book Review: Positive Behavioral Supports for the Classroom. Journal of School and Educational Psychology, 1(1), 35–38. https://www.journalofschoolpsychology.com/index.php/josep/article/view/8
O'Shea, S., Stone, C. & Delahunty, J. (2015). "I 'feel' like I am at university even though I am online." Exploring how students narrate their engagement with higher education institutions in an online learning environment. Distance Education, 36(1), 41-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2015.1019970
Peacock S., & Cowan, J. (2018) Towards online student-directed communities of inquiry, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 42(5), 678-693, https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2017.1302569
Peterson, C. H., Peterson, N. A., & Powell, K. G. (2017). Cognitive interviewing for item development: Validity evidence based on content and response processes. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 50(4), 217-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2017.1339564
Pokropek, A. (2011). Missing by design: Planned missing-data designs in social science. Research & Methods, 20(1), 81-105. https://hdl.handle.net/1811/69576
Reise, S. P., Hubbard, A., S., Wong, E. F., Schalet, B. D., Haviland, M. G., & Kimerling, R. (2021). Response category functioning on the Healthcare Engagement Measure using the nominal response model. Assessment. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911211052682
Rubio, D. M., Berg-Weger, M., Tebb, S. S., Lee, E. S., & Rauch, S. (2003). Objectifying content validity: Conducting a content validity study in social work research. Social Work Research, 27(2), 94-104. https://doi.org/10.1093/swr/27.2.94
Russell, D., Peplau, L. A., & Cutrona, C. E. (1980). The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminant validity evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(3), 472-480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.3.472
Rutkowski, L., Svetina, D., & Liaw, Y. (2019). Collapsing categorical variables and measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 26(5), 790-802. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2018.1547640
Slaten, C. D., Elison, Z. M., Deemer, E. D., Hughes, H. A., & Shemwell, D. A. (2018). The development and validation of the University Belonging Questionnaire. The Journal of Experimental Education, 86(4), 633-651. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2017.1339009
Stapleton, L. M., Yang, J. S., & Hancock, G. R. (2016). Construct meaning in multilevel settings. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 41(5), 481-520. https://doi.org/10.3102/1076998616646200
Strayhorn, T. L. (2012). College students' sense of belonging: A key to educational success for all students. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203118924
Weston, R., & Gore, P. A. (2006). A brief guide to structural equation modeling. The Counseling Psychologist, 34(5), 719–751. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006286345
Thomas, L., Herbert, J. & Teras, M. (2014). A sense of belonging to enhance participation, success and retention in online programs. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 5(2), 69‐80. https://doi.org/10.5204/intjfyhe.v5i2.233
Tinto, V. (2017). Through the eyes of students. Journal of College Student Retention, 19(3), 254–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025115621917
Vaccaro, A., & Newman, B. M. (2016). Development of a sense of belonging for privileged and minoritized students: An emergent model. Journal of College Student Development, 57(8), 925–942. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2016.0091
Walton, G. M., & Brady, S. T. (2017). The many questions of belonging. In A. J. Elliot, C. S. Dweck, & D. S.
Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation: Theory and application (pp. 272-293). Guilford Press.
Waters, L., & Charles Higgins, M. (2021). The impact of a teacher-based positive education intervention on student wellbeing literacy. Journal of School and Educational Psychology, 2(1), 22–43. https://doi.org/10.47602/josep.v2i1.12
Waters, L., & Johnstone, A. (2022). Embedding Well-being into School: A Case Study of Positive Education Before and During COVID-19 Lockdowns. Journal of School and Educational Psychology, 2(2), 60–77. https://doi.org/10.47602/josep.v2i2.15
Whiting, E. F., Everson, K. C., & Feinauer, E. (2018). The Simple School Belonging Scale: Working toward a unidimensional measure of student belonging. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 51(3), 163-178, https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2017.1358057
Yıldırım, M., Aziz, I. A., Vostanis, P., & Hassan, M. N. (2022). Associations among resilience, hope, social support, feeling belongingness, satisfaction with life, and flourishing among Syrian minority refugees. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332640.2022.2078918
You, S., Ritchey, K. M., Furlong, M. J., Shochet, I., & Boman, P. (2011). Examination of the latent structure of the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 29(3), 225–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282910379968
