Building Belonging in Online Classrooms: Relationships at the Core (Dulfer, Gowing, & Mitchell, 2024)

This study examines the experiences of twenty postgraduate students in online learning settings, their feelings of isolation or inclusion, and the elements of their particular classes that helped them engage. The paper asserts a need, post-pandemic, to explore online learning on its own terms. Learner-instructor interaction, learner-learner interaction, and learner-content interaction were all found to be important elements in enhancing students’ sense of belonging, with subject matter and pedagogy both supporting meaningful relational connections with both peers and instructors.

Dulfer, N., Gowing, A., & Mitchell, J. (2024). Building belonging in online classrooms: relationships at the core. Teaching in Higher Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2024.2349993