Business schools have significantly increased the percentage of teaching-focused faculty (defined here as full-time faculty with doctorates not on the tenure track) over the last decades. However, many schools have not adequately updated their policies to support these faculty, leading some teaching-focused faculty to feel like second-class…

This study investigated how first-year college students described belonging experiences with college peers in the first semester, specifically conceptualizing these relationships as bidirectional, where college students both receive and provide support to one another in a mutual way. A descriptive phenomenological research design was employed to…

Girls are consistently found to have higher literacy levels than their male peers and to consume more social narrative fiction. This study conducted interviews with four autistic girls to better understand how reading fiction can inform the camouflaging behaviours of autistic girls. Participants described how imitating characters embodying desired…

Students minoritised because of their race and/or ethnicity have a different university experience from their peers, which is reflected in degree completion statistics, awarding gaps, and graduate outcomes. One factor influencing these outcomes is students' sense of inclusion and belonging with the university, which is lower in minoritised…

This research examined the serial mediating effect of interaction anxiety and insight into the relationship between self-esteem and approval dependence in university students. The research group comprised 511 volunteer university students, of whom 78,7% were females and 21,3% were males. Research data was collected via "The Two-Dimensional…

Sense of belonging is a fundamental human need that can raise the chances of self-actualization and academic success in college. Latine and other historically underrepresented student groups may experience greater challenges in this area than White students due to a greater propensity for feelings of belonging uncertainty, perceptions of…

This study examines how young adults evaluate gender-based social inclusion and exclusion from academic peer groups. Participants included 199 college students (M[subscript age] = 19.18; SD = 1.37, Range = 18-25), who made judgments about the acceptability of gender-based social exclusion of female and male peers from a Physics group (a…

Despite increased social and emotional challenges in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, little attention has been paid to students' social and emotional self-efficacy beliefs. The present study investigated university students' (N = 268) academic, social, and emotional self-efficacy beliefs as predictors of their academic achievement,…

Students at the collegiate level face chronic stress due to the lifestyles of heavy workloads, schoolwork, and adjustment to campus life. Being in prolonged periods of stress could negatively affect students' well-being, which can adversely affect other psychological areas such as mindfulness, motivation and engagement, and sense of belonging, as…

This paper aims to analyze the impact of body dissatisfaction on communication competencies among engineering college students and to put forth remedial strategies. As body dissatisfaction is still a grey area in research-related communication competencies, the researchers have focused on this arena. Sixty-one heterogeneous participants (male = 30…

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for higher education institutions to take a holistic approach to early childhood teacher preparation, which includes fostering students' social connections at the university. Using an online survey, this study examined perceptions of whether and how the pandemic disrupted sense of belonging (SoB) and…

Nationally, Black men graduate at 39% on six-year graduation rates at four-year, public institutions (NCES, 2022). Black men have experienced one of the lowest rates of success compared with students from other demographic populations (Black & Bimper, 2020), but these outcomes are related to underrepresentation, racial hostility, and social…

Despite the critical contributions that student affairs professionals make to college students' learning and development and campus operations, mid-level professionals are at risk of leaving the field altogether. The current study investigated the role of sense of belonging in mid-level student affairs professionals' experiences and their turnover…

Belonging is personal and political. As a fundamental human need, belonging is about self-acceptance and about feeling "accepted" by others. And yet, this process of acceptance is inextricably tied to structures of power that work to include and exclude. Structures of whiteness within higher education systems, for example, relegate…

This paper investigates the perceptions and experiences of graduated African American students regarding the effects of campus gospel choir involvement on their persistence at Michigan State University (MSU). Drawing upon the frameworks of Astin's Input-Output-Environment (IOE) model, Tinto's Theory of Belonging, and Kuh's High-Impact Practices…