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Developing A Sense Of Belonging For Commuter Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Eric S. Bloomquist

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this mixed methods study, the researcher explored the experiences of commuter freshmen at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—a large, four-year, public institution. Specifically, he sought to better understand how commuter freshmen feel that they belong on their residential campus and what they report as their greatest needs in order to succeed. Using a quantitative survey returned from a sample of 92 students (n = 92), he found that a majority of the commuter freshmen did report feelings of belonging. Additionally, responses relating to feelings of not belonging were correlated with lower first-semester self-reported GPAs. In a follow-up Nominal Group …