Educational Psychology Commons^™

Measuring Postsecondary Students’ Sense Of Belonging: Psychometric Investigations Into Student Demographics And Course Delivery Contexts, John Eric M. Novosel-Lingat

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Research suggests sense of belonging in academic contexts influences student academic outcomes and well-being. Instruments (i.e., surveys, questionnaires) developed to measure sense of belonging mainly focus on the experience of students in middle grades. Few instruments measure sense of belonging experienced by postsecondary students, despite many colleges and universities seeking to improve retention, persistence, and graduation by addressing this complex construct. Furthermore, the rapid growth of online courses necessitates and presents an opportunity to employ psychometric investigations to explore the sense of belonging experienced by both face-to-face and online students. The first of the two studies conducted for this dissertation …