‘[…] students who do not feel like they belong rarely stay in college. In fact, students ‘who do not have a sense of belonging complain that their college experience is like ‘stopping by the mall’ to get what they need on the way to somewhere else’ (Jacoby & Garland, 2004-2005, p.65)
Strayhorn’s definition of belonging: ‘In terms of college, sense of belonging refers to students’ perceived social support on campus, a feeling or sensation of connectedness, and the experience of mattering of feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by, and important to the campus community or others on campus such as faculty, staff, and peers.’ (p. 24)
‘[…] in essense, sense of belonging is a ‘feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together’ (McMillan and Chavi, 1986, p.9) (Question: Do you think college students today feel like their institutions need them to exist and vice versa?)’ (p.24)
On the objective importance of ‘belonging’: ‘People will change their style of dress, buy a new car, build a brand-new home, change academic majors, join a fraternity or sorority […], cut their hair or dye their hair blue to gain acceptance, to experience community, or to feel a sense of belonging.’ (p.29).
Strayhorn, T.L. (2020) Belonging in Online Learning Environments [online]. Interrogating Spaces Podcast. [Viewed 15 April 2021]. Available from: https://interrogatingspaces.buzzsprout.com/683798/4795271-belonging-inonline-learning-environments
Available at: http://journals.staffs.ac.uk/index.php/ipihe/article/view/224/352 (Accessed: 17 August 2022)
Paper considers how to foster belonging in response to Covid-19 and global calls for racial justice
Recommendations are ‘myth-busting belonging’ to consider the implications for educators in planning and delivering the curriculum, putting UAL implementing equitable policies and practices as central.
One of the three AEM strands is: Fostering Belonging and Compassionate Pedagogy.
what does this mean and is this globally recognised amongst all organisational stakeholders?
‘We (Hill and Bunting: Educational Developers) define belonging as a social and relational construct rooted in human connection.’ (p.2)
On methodology: ‘we draw together, and critically reflect upon, the experiences of thirteen course teams across the six UAL Colleges […] we reflect upon our conversations with academics and technicians and their experiences of fostering student’s sense of belonging during the past year of online and blended teaching in response to the pandemic. We have facilitated 23 synchronous workshops around the themes of ‘Belonging online’, ‘Debiasing’, ‘Microaffirmations’ and ‘Courageous conversations’ (Hill et al., 2020) and have curated a range of multi-media resources, including our own series of podcasts, that are provided for staff to engage with asynchronously. We follow a constructive change approch (Lueddeke, 1999) and support course teams to reflect on teaching interactions […] in relation to bias, racism, oppression and silencing (Mountford-Zimdars et al. 2015; NUS/UUK, 2019).
‘several sources indicate that issues of belonging persist at UAL particularly for students of colour. Comments and experiences captured within the nSS/USS open comments, @UALTruths, Decolonising the Arts Curriculum Zine, UAL Creative Mindsets and UAL Student voices, all speak to student feelings of isolation, loneliness, not ‘fitting in’, being an outsider, and being stereotyped’ (pp.3-4).
‘In UK HE, belonging became a prominent topic following the publication of Liz Thomas’ (2012) HEFCE funded ‘What Works? Student Retention and Success Programme’ report. The report found that feelings of isolation and not ‘fitting in’ (i.e. unbelonging) were the most common reasons for students to consider withdrawal from undergraduate study.’ (p.4)
This research uses a psychological stance on defining belonging:
‘students’ feelings of being valued, respected, supported, included, and that they matter by teachers and peers, so that they feel part of the university learning community’ (Hill et al., 2020, p.4) […] a transitory concept that can be lost and found […] is at higher risk during moments of vulnerability and change. As belonging exists at difference levels within HE, such as class, university, and course – it is possible to feel both belonging and unbelonging simultaneously.’ (p.5)
‘As Vanessa May states (2013, p.154) ‘who can achieve belonging and where is always tied to issues of power and inequality [within society].’ Due to the intersections of identities no student will experience belonging in the same way (Cureton and Gravestock, 2019_. Belonging is an inherently individual experience (Riley, 2018) and, as there is not a ‘one-size fits all’ intervention to create a sense of belonging (sic).’ (p.5)
Their podcasts had the following features, and they provide their rationales for these as follows:
‘Dialogic: […] to align problem-posing education with the quest for social justice’ (p.8)
‘Asynchronous: […] synchronous learning is biased’ as it ignores difference in time zones, can be culturally unaware, is problematic for those with families, is elitist when involving auto-visuals and relies on linguistic capital (Bali and Meier, 2013)’ (p.8).
‘Affective: […] acknowledge that the act of embodied listening provoked an affective response from voice, accent, tone, timbre, atmosphere and that this opened space to further reflect on values of compassion and empathy’ (p.9).
‘Addressing epistemic and procedural needs: […] revealing tension between ‘how do I do this?’ and ‘why am I doing this?’ […] the relationship between the ‘procedures and lived realities’ (p.9).
Myth-busing on belonging:
‘The unexamined importance of the academic role in fostering belonging by proactively connecting with students was found to be overwhelming by some staff as they realised that the ‘onus is on me’ […] preexisting concerns about boundaries and becoming ‘friendly’ with students are exacerbated by the hyper-availability of being in the online context due to the pandemic’ (p. 11).
‘Connected to a focus on building peer relationships, is a problematic emphasis on arranging extra-curricular social activities’ (p.11).
‘ […] students are ‘incorporated’ into academic communities. This projects an opinion onto students of what it means to belong at university and can result in pressure being placed on students to ‘fit in’ (Strayhorn, 2019) and gain cultural caputal (Bourdieu, 1977) by confirming to pre-existing norms of the global North’ (p.13).
‘The idea of education as a form of healing’ (p.13)
‘The need to design spaces and frameworks to encourage students to build listening skills were seen as key factors in creating compassionate, anti-racist learning environments and discussed Gilbert’s micro-skills on compassion as an example (Gilbert, 2016)’ (p.14).
On limitations to belonging: ‘to create a culture of belonging, the institution needs to take responsibility in designing policies and infrastructure that can engender it (Thomas 2012).
Conclusion:
‘The importance of ongoing reflexivity at an institutional level to challenge myths and normative assumptions around fostering belonging cannot be underestimated […] support and commitment from snr leadership to develop compassionate policies and practices for staff is essential to effect structure and cultural change […] and we encourage the use of creative arts-based methods for educational development to remind each other that listening is a force for change (Rogers, 1980)’ (pp.17-18).
OK, so I think there’s a lot of scope here. For one, as a relative layman to the discipline, I don’t feel like I have learnt anything new today. I also feel like there’s suggestions towards how belonging can be fostered, but not a way of suggesting how one might monitor it?? Obviously it should be proactive, but there were only quite wooly recommendations around how these could be implemented. Furthermore, this was during the time of majority online-delivery, we’re in a different space now. We’re perhaps dealing with students whose very framework for ‘belonging’ has shifted.
‘It involves you thinking carefully about what you are doing, so it becomes critical self-reflective practice.’ (p.23)
I hadn’t realised it was reflective – can check with course team.
‘[…] there is no such thing as ‘action research’. It is a form of words that refers to people becoming aware of and making public their processes of learning with others, and explaining how this informs their practices.’ (p.24)
‘[The] idea of showing how you are trying to live your values in your practice is at the heart of debates about demonstrating and judging quality and validity in action research. It includes issues relating to:
IDing and articulating your values, i.e. what gives meaning to your life and practices;
Whether you really are living and practising in the direction of your values, and how you test the validity of what you are saying when you claim that you are;
how you justify those values as their emerge in your practice; this involves interrogating your values and seeing whether they are the right ones for you and your situation; as well as whether your values are shared by others in, say, culturally diverse settings;
how you judge quality of practice and research in relation to whether you have helped yourself and other people to come to think for yourselves and develop critical perspectives on what you are doing and saying.’ (p. 26)
OK so this is where the reflective element is going to come in. It would be helpful to think about methods whereby I can analyse that without being biased.
Key terms:
ONTOLOGY: the way we view ourselves, ‘who do I think I am?’ Influences how I position myself in the research. What do I believe in?
EPISTEMOLOGY: ‘what do I know and how do I come to know it?’ How will I form knowledge?
METHODOLOGY: how I do this research
SOCIO-POLITICAL INTENT: my research needs to be understood in relation to what you intend to do and how you intend to do it. (paraphrased from p.27)
‘Ontological issues: […] action researchers accept the responsibility of ensuring that their own lives are in order before they make judgements about other people’s. This means honestly critiquing their practice, recognising what is good and building on strengths, as well as understand what needs attention and taking action to improve it’ (p.28).
‘We can adopt an outsider or an insider perspective, or various points in between. Researcher positionality is a major consideration in deciding which approach to take.’ (p.28)
‘We can move action research from its currently dominant surface-level focus on methods and practices to the deeper levels of moral accountability, so that we can explain why we do what we do’ (p. 37)
I think this is a really nice sentiment to include in my writing.
‘Education research, including action research; is always socially, culturally, historically and politically situated, undertaken by a real person or persons, within a particular context, for a particular purpose […] ‘when speaking about educational research in general, and action research in particular, it is important to remember that the conversation is being conducted in a cultural, historical and socio-political context.’ (pp. 38-39)
This is super important to think about when searching for the right methodology:
‘Typologies of knowledge: There are different kinds of knowledge and different ways of coming to know (i.e. different epistemologies) […] Which ones you choose depend on your positionality, reflecting your attitudes to and relationships with others.
Forms of knowledge: […]
Propositional knowledge refers to knowledge about facts and figures. Knowledge exists ‘out there’ external to a research, whose job is to discover it and pass it on to others who may use it and perhaps exchange it for other goods […];
Procedural knowledge refers to procedures, skills and technical capabilities. ‘Know how’ is not a fixed body of knowledge external to ourselves but involves practical procedural knowledge. ‘I know how to do this’ refers to actions in the world, and the claim to knowledge can be tested by demonstrating, for example, that you can mathematics or ride a bike.
Personal knowledge, also called tacit knowledge refers to a subjective, intuitive way of knowing that cannot be rationalised. Often we cannot articulate what we know, we ‘just know’ […] refers to the latent knowledge […] researchers always need to link their ways of knowing with the capacity to reflect on what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Propositional knowledge […] refer to abstract, analytical ways of thinking and knowing […] we view reality and knowledge as objects external to ourseles; we study them and make proposals about how they work, and why they work as they do […] when we think and express our knowledge in propositional ways, we make positive statements about the way we think about things (example from <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#:~:text=By%20%E2%80%9Cpropositional%20knowledge%E2%80%9D%2C%20we,obtains%20when%20Susan%20knows%20Alyssa. ‘by “propositional knowledge”, we mean knowledge of a proposition – for example, if Susan knows that Alyssa is a musician, she has knowledge of the proposition that Alyssa is a musician. Propositional knowledge should be distinguished from knowledge of “acquaintance”, as obtains when Susan knows Alyssa.”>
Dialectical forms of logic: refer to the capacity to accept and incorporate contradiction. We view reality as something we are part of, not separate from. Knowing becomes a process of creating new forms out of previous ones, a process of becoming, of coming into being. It works on the principle of question and answer, where one answer generates a new question, so nothing is ever complete or final […]
Relational forms of logic: […] fluid forms of thinking when we recognise ourselves as in relation with our contexts, including the people and objects we are with […] it is also part of many so-called indigenous ways of knowing (Thayer-Bacon 2003)
Dialogic forms of logic: […] we are always in relation with other people […] this way of thinking is important for developing communities of practice […] where you enter into and ‘dwell in’ the spirit of the community.’ (pp.40-42)
Important in considering the types of knowledge that respondents will produce to survey including students and staff. Personal knowledge is interesting – I think personal knowledge is important for this i.e. you don’t have to know how and why you feel that you do not belong, the feeling of not belonging is important for the data.
Typology of human interests:
‘Habermas (1972, 1987), a major theorist in social science, rejected the view that knowledge generation is a neutral activity carried out by an external ‘mind’ somewhere, resulting in the production of ‘pure’ knowledge. Instead, he suggested that knowledge is an activity undertaken by a real person who is driven by particular desires and interests. From this perspective, knowledge is always constituted of human interests. Habermas categories personal-social practices as three broad sets of interests: the technical, the practical and the emancipatory.’ (p. 44)
This is really interesting as it suggests to me that all knowledge is intrinsically biased – I want to research belonging because I felt like I didn’t belong at university. Do I want to find out that students also don’t feel a sense of belonging, because the subconscious motivation of my research is to find community? I don’t know, it makes me think I’ve got to be really rigorous with my decision on a methodology.
Critical implications for action research (this is so interesting!):
‘Many contexts in which action research approaches are used […] draw on the idea of empirical research (where conclusions and decisions are based on valid data or evidence), so action research is (mistakenly) placed in the social sciences. This may be because the traditional model for managing learning (usually other people’s learning) continues to be a mode of instruction. People are expected to receive information and apply it to their work. The locus (focus/concentration) of power is in the external researcher or provider who gathers data about the situation and theorises what is happening in the situation. People then become data to be manipulated and spoken about. Boundaries are established in terms of what can and cannot be done. The collegial and humanitarian values base of human living is systematically factored out, to be replaced by values of self-interest, power and control. Participants are discouraged from acting as agents, and are instead required to become skilled technicians whose job is to apply received knowledge generated by so-called ‘experts’.’ (pp.46-47).
I absolutely love this critical implication for ARP!! It brings in the need to decentralise the power away from me as a researcher and instead strive for a participatory design model (for both research and solutions). This will also negate the risk of me struggling with any unconscious.
Interpretive research (sometimes called interpretative research):
‘In empirical research, participants act as data whose personal involvement is factored out; any personal intervention would contaminate and potentially skew the results. Interpretative approaches, however, acknowledge the contributions of practitioners as real-life participants in the research […] the question always remains, however – who generates the theory and therefore who owns the research?’ (p.47)
‘This interpretative view of the research process and the positioning of the researcher and research participants is potentially little different from that of traditional empirical research. The same power relationships exist in terms of who is regarded as a legitimate knower, whose practice is to be studied, and whose knowledge counts.'(pp.48-49)
Interesting to think that I’m still in a position of power because I’m asking them, I’m studying ‘them’. It seems almost unavoidable?
Critical-theoretical approaches:
My own summary: this approach criticises other methodologies use in social scientific enquiry as they failed to recognise the ‘historical, cultural and social situatedness of researchers. People could not comment on their experience unless they understood how that experience was shaped by their own situatedness. They could not be free until they realised they were unfree […] a new approach […] enabled peple to become aware of the historical and cultural forces that had influenced them and their situations. Peple needed to appreciate the power-constituted nature of their lives, and learn how to challenge. This view came to stand as an ideology critique that enabled people to find ways to recreate their personal and social realities.’ (p.49) Exactly this!!
Critical implications of critical theoretical approaches: ‘The aim of critical theory is to critique, not to initiate or manage change. While critical theorists appear to support action, they tend to remain at the level of rhetoric, their theorising is limited to propositional statements rather than being embodied in their own practices as they engage with changing social processes. This is the main limitation of critical theory as a theory for social renewal. It stays in the abstract linguistic level of description and propositional explanations [critical theory has amazing powers for social renewal, provided critical theorists themselves take the all-important step of showing how their theories work. This would mean transforming abstract theories into concrete action plans, acting in the direction of those plans, and producing accounts of practice to show how they were able to work towards social transformation’ (p.50) A LOT OF FOOD FOR THOUGHT, HERE.
‘I like the idea expressed in the old Irish saying, ‘We live in the shelter of one another’, similar to the African idea of ‘ubuntu’ (I find myself in you). To check that our practices are as we wish them to be, and make claims that we understand and do things better, we have to provide evidence to show how and why things have changed because of our influence. The process of research becomes the practice, and because the process is one of learning, evaluating and acting, it therefore stands as a form of research. The boundaries are dissolved: knowledge, interests and practices are within a life.’ (p.51) There are a lot of blurred lines (gross) with Action Research, I think I have to relax a bit about how to structure it like any other research project.
Key theorists in action research:
Need to think deeply about my ontological and epistemological stance: ‘[…] do you see yourself as thinking free, seeing the possibilities in everything, and willing to find out what others say and do, so you can learn with and from them? Which literatures do you draw on to develop your understandings? You need to think for yourself, because powerful voices mandate what action research is and is not; and we learn to believe those voices, and opt for one form or another, without considering that there may be more authentic and credible voices to listen to. ‘(p.55)
I suspect my ontological perspective puts values on my ability to espouse the knowledge of others and synthesise my experiences with theirs. However, I believe I have to let this go and exist in the uncomfortable space where I truly lean into the unknowingness of the project.
‘Reason and Bradbury […] suggest that accounts may be seen as first-person, second-person and third-person action research, as follows:
First-person action research occurs when an individual practitioner reflects on their personal practice and offers an account of what they are doing and thinking.
Second-person action research is when people enquire with others about how they can address issues of personal concern.
Third-person action research aims to connect individual researchers with wider communities, whether face to face or virtually at a distance (see Reason and Bradbury, 2008, p.6)
Even though I don’t want to fit within the paradigms of others too much, I think this is a helpful way of eventually understanding what my project is doing!
(p.57)
From the case study on p.68:
‘I initiated dialogue with the staff: dialogue takes a group beyond any single individual’s understanding, and requires everyone to interrogate their assumptions and regard one another as colleagues. I also learned to change public perception of myself as ‘the man with the answer’, to encourage mental models to be modified and disagreements to be bridged (although not always resolved).’ (p.68 – Eric Deakins, New Zealand).
What we need to know to use our knowledge for personal, social and environmental betterment, how action research can help in the process, and the kind of mindset necessary
‘[…] the values as well as the knowledge they inspire need to be under constant critical review. What action research stands for is the realisation of human needs towards autonomy, loving relationships and productive knowledge, as well as the urge towards freedom of thinking and choice, creativity and self-realisation.’ (p.72)
Extract from p.77 case study: ‘I am being accountable because I am engaging in action research and offering it up for the critique of my peers. The two are becoming one and the same educational process.’ (Case study: Jane Renowden, UK, 2012)
How do we do action research? Planning and doing a project
this is helpful:
‘General principles in planning:
We review our current practice;
identify an aspect we wish to investigate;
ask focused questions about how we can investigate it;
imagine a way forwards;
try it out, and take stock of what happens;
modify our plan in light of what we have found, and continue with the action;
evaluate the modified action;
and reconsider what we are doing in light of the evaluation. This can then lead to
a new action-reflection cycle…’ (p.90)
‘Whitehead (1989) […] proposes that you begin with your enquiry by identifying a situation where your values are denied in your practice: you may believe in social democracy but you do not always give people an opportunity to state their point of view for example […] then transform into a coherent action plan as follows:
What do I need to investigate?
How do I wish to investigate it?
How do I show and describe the current situation as it is?
What do I think I can do about it? What will I do about it?
How do I show and explain the situation as it develops?
How will I ensure that any conclusions I draw are reasonably fair and accurate, by inviting the critical responses of others and myself?
How do I communicate the sigificance of what I am doing?
How will I modify my practices and thinking in light of the evaluation?’ (p.91)
(Could only access the abstract so here is the briefest notes…)
‘Conceptually, the review reflects a social cognitive perspetive on motivation. This theoretical framework maintains that individuals have psychological needs, that satsifaction of these needs affectsperception and behaviour, and that characteristics of the social context influence how well these needs are met. The concern here is how schools, as social organisations, address what is defined as a basic psychological need, the need to experience belongingness. The findings suggest that students’ experience of acceptance influences multiple dimensions of their benhaviour but that schools adopt organisational practices that neglect and may actually undermine students’ experience of membership in a supportive community.’
Key points of reflection from this article is how belongingness is necessary for good mental health, which has a holistically positive impact on the student experience and continuation and retention. the third level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is love and belonging needs. Humans are social creatures that crave interaction with others. This level of the hierarchy outlines the need for friendship, intimacy, family, and love. humans have the need to give and receive love, to feel like they belong in a group.
Tinto. V. (2008) ‘Access Without Support Is Not Opportunity’, Inside Higher Ed. Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/09/access-without-support-not-opportunity (Accessed: 16th August 2022)
‘Basical skills learning communities proved to be particularly effective when the faculty and staff changed the way they taught the courses. Rather than rely on lecture and drill, they employed pedagogies of engagement such as cooperative learning and problem-based learning. As a result, students not only learned the material of the courses in a connected manner, they also learned that material together. As one student told us, ‘we learn better together’ […] ‘It has benefited me because I have gotten to know people. I am not alone anymore. It has helped me feel more comfortable, more confident. The more confident I feel, the better I do.”
Importance of creating communities as part of access in HE.
‘Can you imagine what changes we might achieve if we were all willing to use evidence to reconsider our own practices and together think differently about what we do.’
Love this so much, think it could be a nice opener quote.
‘The fact is that many colleges speak of the importance of increasingly the retention of low-income students and sometimes invest considerable resources to that end. But for all that effort most institutions do not take the student success seriously […] they adopt what parker calls the ‘add a course’ strategy in addressing the issues that face them […] Need to address the issue of student retention, in particular that of new students? Add a course, such as a Freshman Seminar, but do little to reshape the prevailing educational experiences of students during the first year […] the result is that efforts to enhance student retention are increasingly segmented into disconnected parts that are located at the margins of institutional academic life. Therefore while it is true that there are more than a few retention programs on our campuses, most institutions have done little to change the nature of college life, little to alter the prevailing character of student educational experience, and therefore little to address the deeper roots of student attrition. to be serious about the success of academically underprepared students, institutions would recognise that the roots of their attrition lie not only in student backgrounds and the academic skills they bring to campus, but in the very character of the educational settings in which students are asked to learn…’
Just stresses the importance of having an integrated and universal approach to a problem.
Wilcox, P., Winn, S. and Fyvie-Gauld, M. (2005) It was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people: the role of social support in the first year experience of higher education. Studies in Higher Education. 30 (6), pp. 707–722. DOI: 10.1080/03075070500340036
‘Here the concept of ‘social support’ is used to analyse interviews with 34 first-year students, investigating the processes through which social integration (or lack of it) influenced their decision as to whether or not to leave university. Our data support the claim that making compatible friends is essential to retention’ (p. 707)
‘[…] most research on the first-year student experience has focused on social support within the academic environment, perhaps understandably so, but this has inevitably meant that less attention has been paid to students’ experience of the wider social world of the university (Haselgrove, 1994). Those authors who have investigated aspects of students’ lives outside their course have found that the wider student experience plays a significant role in their decisions about staying at university of leaving.’ (p.709).
Even though this is a 2005 study, it still stands that I don’t think (!) there are formal reporting metrics for these softer external aspects of the student experience. Is there?
FYI there is a good model and rationale for methodology on p.710 i.e. how samples were chosen, selection of the ‘constant comparative method of grounded theory’.
‘Of the 12 interviewees who withdrew, only one student was clear that his decision to leave was due solely to having made the wrong choice of subject. The remaining 11 students discussed between four and nine different factors, each of which contributed to their ultimate decision to leave, and three themes emerged – social support, academic and material factors […] the first of the three themes that emerged from our data, the creation of social support, ran through the majority of our interviews.’ (pp. 711-712).
Acknowledging that belonging (i.e. a social factor) is not the be-all and end-all, but it is one of the three key factors identified and it’s something that arguably received less attention than academic (i.e. unhappy with course or struggled with independent study) and material (i.e. finances or accommodation).
‘Ozga and Sukhnandan argue thatwe need to understand non-completion as a ‘process of student-institutional negoti-ation’ (1998, p. 319). We agree, but argue it is also about students negotiating betweenthe old life they have left behind (family, home and friends) and the new life they haveahead of them. This is a complex process and ‘finding your place’, as one studentexpressed it, between old and new creates tensions which have to be resolved. Makingand maintaining social support with peers and (to a lesser extent) staff is central tothis process. Scheff (1990, p. 4) argues that the maintenance of social bonds is the‘most crucial motive’ for humans and threats to social bonds generate intense feelings.Indeed, survival is threatened when they do not exist, as Zoe explains:
Looking back now I think why did I get so upset? Because you do feel really lonely and I think that really plays on your mind, so that you feel so bad, that you feel so, you know, you are just so desperate to go home, you really are desperate. … I think I went home for thehalf-term or something like that, I think I remember driving back up again thinking please, crash the car so that I didn’t have to go back. Just thinking ‘I so don’t want to have to go back’ so, and that’s how bad it got, wanting to crash the car so I didn’t have to go back.
(Zoe, 20, withdrew; her emphases)
‘Students who fail to make compatible friends, or who continue to spend too much time with former friends or existing boyfriends/girlfriends, are fare more likely to report being homesick and, as Mackie (1998) found, they are likely to go home frequency and thus become more socially isolated at university In our sample, three-quarters of the students who withdrew talked about the difficulties of making friends’ (p. 714)
‘The key issues raised by students in relation to social support in the academic side of their new lives were relationships with staff, especially personal tutors, and relationships with other students on the course’ (p. 716)
It would be interesting to unpack how both staff and students feel about being ‘friends’ with their course staff.Is it a valid form of friendship? A substitute if friendship with peers does not form? Free comments might be enlightening here.
‘[…] Suzanna, who experienced a number of personal problems during her first year, said that her tutor played a central role in her decision to stay on her course: I felt that I could tell her things and just and she helped me so much Like it if wasn’t for her I would have just left uni, I would have. (Suzanna, 21, stayed). However, a number of those who withdrew failed to get on well with their personal tutor. These students identified problems around lack of approachability, failure to listen and lack of availability of the personal tutor: My personal tutor, I wasn’t particularl impressed with, that he intimidated a little and I don’t, I felt that he didn’t particularly listen and I don’t think he would have been my first choice to have gone to about anything then.’ (Fiona, 18, withdrew).
I wonder if staff fully comprehend this?
‘Our findings indicate that new students need support to deal with not only the academic culture shock of adapting to the higher education environment, but also the emotional shock of moving from the familiar home environment to a very different life at university. If academic staff are aware of the intense anxiety and fear that new students experience in relation to the social aspects of transition to university, personal tutors can play a significant part in conveying to students that these feelings are not unusual’ (p.719)
Low-hanging fruit for Get Ready.
‘[…] the limitations of our research raise methodological questions around how best to capture the complexity of students’ social interactions over time’
This is, in part, the focus of my study – how do we measure something as intangible as belonging? Institutions can’t conduct qualitative research with every student. So, what is the alternative? What methodology could be used?
‘what we are suggesting is that any analysis which fails to look at how social relationships are accomplished (or not) cannot give a full account of student retention.’ (p. 720).
