Student Connectedness and Sense of Belonging in Online Learning

As online student enrollment increases in higher education, further attention to retention management and student success strategies are occurring (Muljana & Luo, 2019; Peacock & Cowan, 2019). Researchers are asking questions such as “What makes an online student successful?” and “How can we continue to retain our online students and see them through to graduation?” (Green et al, 2017; Laux et al., 2016; Muljana & Luo, 2019; Peacock & Cowan, 2019). The notion of student connectedness and sense of belonging has emerged as a major contributor to student success.

This post briefly describes what student connectedness and sense of belonging are, and how higher education faculty and staff can promote connectedness and sense of belonging to help ensure students success.

Going Beyond Instructor Presence

Throughout the studies of online student success factors, research has continuously shown the importance of instructor presence and engagement in online courses—quality instructor presence leads to stronger engagement among the class and higher success rates (Alman et al, 2012; Green et al., 2017; Ladyshewsky, 2013; Muljana & Luo, 2019). However, as higher education becomes a more prevalent mode of education, studies are looking further than instructor presence to determine student success factors. Student success is not solely dependent upon instructor presence. Recent studies show that a student’s connectedness and sense of belonging to an institution can greatly impact student retention and graduation rates (Muljana & Luo, 2019; Peacock & Cowan, 2019; Redmond et al, 2018).

What is Student Connectedness and Sense of Belonging?

Student Connectedness is the feelings of involvement and closeness in a specific group, environment, or organization (Hagerty et al, 1993; Townsend & McWhirter, 2005). When a student feels particularly trusting in a group, as well as feels a sense of closeness to the group and individuals in the group, they experience Connectedness. Sense of Belonging goes deeper in that it refers to a student feeling accepted, valued, and understood by a group. A student who experiences sense of belonging typically feels that they fit into the group (Goodenow, 1993; Peacock & Cowan, 2019; Vaccaro et al., 2015). While Connectedness and Sense of Belonging are similar, they each have different focuses regarding the student experience. Connectedness focuses on a student feeling close to a group, and sense of belonging focuses on a student feeling that they fit into a group. Connectedness helps students feel a Sense of Belonging.

How does this impact online students?

Connectedness and sense of belonging are not solely experienced by on-campus students. When online students feel connected to an institution, or if they feel a sense of belonging at their institution, their satisfaction and academic performance are affected. Satisfaction rates, persistence rates, graduation rates, and GPAs rise when students feel a sense of connectedness or belonging in their online program (Larkin et al., 2013; Laux et al., 2016; Thomas et al., 2014). Therefore, Connectedness and sense of belonging should be strongly considered when determining retention and student success strategies for the online environment.

What Can We Do?

There are a number of strategies and best practices that studies recommend engaging in so that student connectedness and sense of belonging are fostered in the online environment. The following four strategies can be implemented to further student sense of belonging, and therefore, student success.

Ensure Accurate and Timely Communication: Online students do not typically have the ability to come to campus and speak to a faculty member directly. This creates a great need for ways to foster quality communication between faculty and staff. Ensure that course design provides easy and noticeable ways that students can reach out to faculty (Mulijana & Luo, 2019). This may look like a bolded email tab on the LMS page, a live-chat button on the home page, or an online office-hours chat room that is consistently available to students. These communication strategies can help break the barrier of distance learning and provide a more natural sense of connection to faculty.

Communicate Resource Information: Faculty have a unique position in online learning as general information providers. For many students, a faculty member is the first—and sometimes only—connection they have to the institution at large. For this reason, faculty have the opportunity to communicate vital resource information—such as online tutoring information, writing center assistance, and mental health resources—to students. Resource information can be communicated via email, via video, or through tools in an LMS. Instructional designers can work alongside faculty to create a resource information button or portal for students to go to any time during the course (Crampton et al., 2012; Muljana & Luo, 2019; Peacock & Cowan, 2019).

Connect Students to Service Professionals: While faculty and instructional designers cannot completely control a student’s relationship with a service professional—such as an advisor or academic coach—they can influence strong relationships through building a culture of collaboration and service. Discuss your students’ needs with departments; help services on campus understand the unique needs of online learners. Engaging in these critical conversations with service professionals, as well as connecting students directly to a service professional on campus, can greatly impact a student’s sense of belonging or connection to the university (Mulijana & Luo, 2019; Redmond et al., 2018).

Provide Social Engagement Opportunities Outside the Classroom: Provide ways that students can connect with other students, faculty, or field professionals. Examples of social engagement opportunities include:

  • Webinars with professionals in the field
  • Live study sessions
  • “Career Fair” collaboration between faculty and guest speakers
  • Community of practice sites for students
  • Social media pages for courses and programs

(Redmond et al., 2018; Knight, 2013; Pittaway & Moss, 2014)

Conclusion

It is vital that higher education faculty and staff remember that the student experience is not limited to “classroom” activities and spaces. When students feel a strong connection to a program or institution, they are more likely to successfully continue in, and graduate from, their online program. We must continue discussing ways that we can help our online students feel that they are as equally a part of our institution as our on-campus students. This task cannot solely be placed on any specific employee position but must be deeply embedded into the values of the institution and become a valued part of the institutional culture. Through critical discussions about online student connectedness and sense of belonging, and through collaborative efforts to ensure connectedness and sense of belonging, we can make vital steps to improving online student success.

References

Alman, S.  W., Frey, B.  A., & Tomer, C. (2012). Social and cognitive presence as factors in learning and student retention:  An investigation of the cohort model in an iSchool setting. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 53(4), 290–302.

Crampton, A., Ragusa, A.T., & Cavanagh, H. (2012). Cross-discipline investigation of the relationship between academic performance and online resource access by distance education students. Research in Learning Technology, 20. doi: 10.3402/rlt.v20i0.14430

Green, T., Hoffmann, M., Donovan, L, & Phuntsog, N. (2017). Cultural communication characteristics and student connectedness in an online environment: Perceptions and preferences of online graduate students. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, 32(2), 1-27. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/k_p67/Documents/Projects%20and%20Goals/IdeaBook/Student%20Engagement%20Fall%202019/Green%20et%20al%20(2017).pdf

Knight, E. M. (2013). Aligning the curriculum of the human resources management undergraduate courses at an English-speaking university in the Caribbean with the university’s 2012–2017 strategic plan. Global Business and Economics Research Journal, 2(8), 61-86.

Ladyshewsky, R. K. (2013). Instructor presence in online courses and student satisfaction. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 7(1), 1-23. Retrieved from http://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v7n1.html

Larkin, J. E., Brasel, A. M., & Pines, H. A. (2013) Cross-disciplinary applications of I/O psychology concepts: predicting student retention and employee turnover. Review of General Psychology, 17(1), 82-92.

Laux, D., Luse, A., Mennecke, B. E. (2016). Collaboration, connectedness, and community: An examination of the factors influencing student persistence in virtual communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 57, 452-464. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.046

Muljana, P. S., & Luo, T. (2019). Factors contributing to student retention in online learning and recommended strategies for improvement: A systematic literature review. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 18, 19-57. https://doi.org/10.28945/4182

Peacock, S. & Cowan, J. (2019). Promoting sense of belonging in online learning communities of inquiry at accredited courses. Online Learning, 23(2), 67-81. doi:10.24059/olj.v23i2.148

Pittaway, S., & Moss, T. (2014). Initially, we were just names on a computer screen: Designing engagement in online teacher education.  Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(7), 37–45. doi:10.14221/ajte.2014v39n7.10

Redmond, P., Heffernan, A., Abawi, L., Brown, A., & Henderson, R. (2018). An online engagement framework for higher education. Online Learning, 22(1), 183-204. doi:10.24059/olj.v22i1.1175

Thomas, L., Herbert, J., & Teras, M. (2014). A sense of belonging to enhance, participation, success and retention in online programs. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 5(2), 69–80. Retrieved from  https://fyhejournal.com/article/download/233/251/233-1-1467-1-10-20140731.pdf

4 thoughts on “Student Connectedness and Sense of Belonging in Online Learning

  1. This is an important and interesting topic, one that doesn’t receive enough attention. I’m eager to learn ways to enhance online student connectedness.

    • Hi Sarah,

      I’m glad to hear that you are interested in this topic! I hope this article post was helpful to you. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions or would like further information: k_p67@txstate.edu.

      Best,
      Kamarie

  2. Hello Marko,

    I appreciate your response! I am going to send you a direct email to further address the points you made (in a more direct and detailed way).

    There are a couple of points that I will address here so that viewers can read as well.

    Student success can be defined as any of the following: Student retention, academic attainment, academic achievement, student advancement (specifically in the professional capacity), and holistic development (Cuseo, 2013). The success that is focused on here is academic and retention.

    Additionally, many of the cited articles go into further detail about numbers and statistics. The article posted here focuses on the “how-to” part of facilitating sense of belonging, but the cited articles go into the research that supports the importance of sense of belonging in higher education.

    Cuseo, J. (2013). Defining student success. Esource for College Transitions (pdf). Retrieved from https://www2.indstate.edu/studentsuccess/pdf/Defining%20Student%20Success.pdf

    I hope this helps those who are reading!

  3. What do you mean by success? From student’s perspective, could it be some enrichment in the future? Maybe financial? Or success from school’s perspective? Student graduates. Or what is success? Maybe becoming a part of the culture.
    If that is so, and if a student is not connected or part of the group or culture, he or she cannot be successful to being with. He or she will fail as a non conformist. So it is meaningless to talk about causality here. Success as being a part of the culture means he is successful. I assume, that success doesn’t mean being in a cultural group.
    Regardless of what a success is, where are the numbers to support the claim that doing ‘these’ things cause the ‘success’. For example, we did ‘this’ on that many students and we measured increase of 1% or 10% or whatever increase in ‘something’. Is statistic significant? Without the numbers and definitions that I mentioned above, this writing looks like pseudo science and some silly meaningless survey.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *