Sense of Belonging in College Freshmen at the Classroom and Campus Levels (Freeman, Anderman, & Jensen, 2007)

This study focuses on the benefits of belonging for college-aged populations, framed generally in the traditional undergraduate sense. Associations between students’ sense of belonging to a class environment and their academic motivation in that class, their perceptions of their instructor, and their campus-level belonging are correlated via survey. Academic self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and task value are all found to correlate strongly with belonging, as are student perceptions of instructors’ warmth, openness, encouragement of participation, and organization. Students’ sense of belonging and social acceptance at the institutional level was also found to matter.

Freeman, T. M., Anderman, L. H., & Jensen, J. M. (2007). Sense of Belonging in College Freshmen at the Classroom and Campus Levels. The Journal of Experimental Education, 75(3), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.75.3.203-220