In a nationally representative sample, first-year U.S. college students "somewhat agree," on average, that they feel like they belong at their school. However, belonging varies by key institutional ...and student characteristics; of note, racialethnic minority and first-generation students report lower belonging than peers at 4-year schools, while the opposite is true at 2-year schools. Further, at 4-year schools, belonging predicts better persistence, engagement, and mental health even after extensive covariate adjustment. Although descriptive, these patterns highlight the need to better measure and understand belonging and related psychological factors that may promote college students' success and well-being.
Having a secure sense of belonging at school supports students' academic achievement and well-being. However, little research has examined how students' personalities relate to their feelings of ...school belonging. We address this gap in the literature by leveraging data from a large sample of first-year college students (N = 4,753) from a diverse set of North American colleges and universities (N = 12). We found that both extraversion and agreeableness were positively associated with belonging, while neuroticism was negatively associated with belonging. In an exploratory analysis, we examined differences between large and small schools. Students who were more extraverted, less neurotic, and less open were more likely to attend large schools. Additionally, the association between extraversion and belonging was stronger for students at large schools. These findings advance our understanding of who comes to feel like they belong at college and how school context may influence these relationships. We emphasize the need for continued research on the relationship between personality and belonging. Additionally, we highlight the implications of these results for higher education institutions.
The idea that test anxiety hurts performance is deeply ingrained in American culture and schools. However, researchers have found that it is actually worry about performance and anxiety-not bodily ...feelings of anxiety (emotionality)-that impairs performance. Drawing on this insight, anxiety reappraisal interventions encourage the view that anxiety can be neutral or even helpful. Initial evidence-largely from laboratory studies-suggests that these kinds of reappraisal interventions can improve student performance in mathematics. But can they do so in other domains and within the constraints of everyday classroom activities? If so, for whom and how? In an intervention study, we tested whether a minimal reappraisal message embedded in an email from course instructors could improve students' academic experience and performance in an introductory college course. The night before their first exam, students received an e-mail that either did or did not include a paragraph designed to lead them to interpret exam anxiety as beneficial or at least neutral. First-year students, who experience greater test anxiety and are less certain about how to perform well, benefited from the reappraisal message, showing decreased worry and increased performance on the exam the next day as well as increased performance in the course overall. Mediation analyses revealed that the effect on overall course performance for first-year students was partially mediated by reduced exam worry and enhanced performance on the first exam. The message did not affect the performance of upper year students.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
The idea that test anxiety hurts performance is deeply ingrained in American culture and schools, but researchers have found that it is students' worry about performance and anxiety-not the bodily feeling of anxiety itself-that impairs performance. Can teaching students that anxiety will not necessarily hurt their performance on an upcoming test reduce students' worry and help them perform better? We find that it can: exposure to a message designed to share this insight before the first exam in a college psychology course reduced the worry and improved the academic performance of first-year (but not upper year) students. Our findings indicate that the academic benefits of this kind of anxiety reappraisal intervention are not limited to the domain of math, as prior research suggested, and they may be greater for students with less experience and greater worry. These findings are important because they suggest a highly scalable means of decreasing test-related worry and enhancing academic performance in vulnerable students.
Previous experiments have shown that college students benefit when they understand that challenges in the transition to college are common and improvable and, thus, that early struggles need not ...portend a permanent lack of belonging or potential. Could such an approach—called a lay theory intervention—be effective before college matriculation? Could this strategy reduce a portion of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic achievement gaps for entire institutions? Three double-blind experiments tested this possibility. Ninety percent of first-year college students from three institutions were randomly assigned to complete single-session, online lay theory or control materials before matriculation (n > 9,500). The lay theory interventions raised first-year full-time college enrollment among students from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds exiting a high-performing charter high school network or entering a public flagship university (experiments 1 and 2) and, at a selective private university, raised disadvantaged students’ cumulative first-year grade point average (experiment 3). These gains correspond to 31–40% reductions of the raw (unadjusted) institutional achievement gaps between students from disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged backgrounds at those institutions. Further, follow-up surveys suggest that the interventions improved disadvantaged students’ overall college experiences, promoting use of student support services and the development of friendship networks and mentor relationships. This research therefore provides a basis for further tests of the generalizability of preparatory lay theories interventions and of their potential to reduce social inequality and improve other major life transitions.
Identifying as a “science person” is predictive of science success, but the mechanisms involved are not well-understood. We hypothesized that science identity predicts success because it fosters a ...sense of belonging in science classrooms. Thus, science identity should be particularly important for first-generation and racial-minority students, who may harbor doubts about belonging in science. Two field studies in college Introductory Biology classes (Ns = 368, 639) supported these hypotheses. A strong science identity predicted higher grades, particularly for minority students. Also consistent with hypotheses, Study 2 found that self-reported belonging in college mediated the relationship between science identity and performance. Furthermore, a social belonging manipulation eliminated the relationship between science identity and performance among minority students. These results support the idea that a strong science identity is particularly beneficial for minority students because it bolsters belonging in science courses. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
A key question about achievement motivation is how to maintain it over time and in the face of stress and adversity. The present research examines how a motivational process triggered by a ...social-psychological intervention propagates benefits over a long period of time and creates an enduring shift in the way people interpret subsequent adversity. During their first or second year of college, 183 Latino and White students completed either a values affirmation intervention or control exercise as part of a laboratory study. In the affirmation intervention, students wrote about a core personal value, an exercise that has been found in previous research to buffer minority students against the stress of being negatively stereotyped in school. This single affirmation improved the college grade point average (GPA) of Latino students over 2 years. Students were re-recruited for a follow-up session near the end of those 2 years. Results indicated that GPA benefits occurred, in part, because the affirmation shifted the way Latino students spontaneously responded to subsequent stressors. In particular, in response to an academic stressor salience task about their end-of-semester requirements, affirmed Latino students spontaneously generated more self-affirming and less self-threatening thoughts and feelings as assessed by an open-ended writing prompt. They also reported having a greater sense of their adequacy as assessed by measures of self-integrity, self-esteem, and hope, as well as higher academic belonging. Discussion centers on how and why motivational processes can trigger effects that persist over surprisingly long periods of time.
Within psychology, efforts to address racial-ethnic disparities in students’ academic outcomes have focused primarily on students themselves. But there is another important person in classrooms: the ...teacher. In the United States, most racial-ethnically minoritized students are taught by White teachers. Drawing on research on cross-race interactions, we argue that for White teachers—especially those new to the profession—this dynamic is likely to elicit psychological threat, which then undermines their relationships with students, their well-being, and their effectiveness as an instructor. We hypothesized that values affirmation, a technique to mitigate threat and stress, could improve these outcomes. We randomly assigned White public school teachers (
N
= 109) at schools serving predominantly minoritized students to complete a values affirmation exercise or a matched control exercise in the fall of their first year of teaching. Five months later, affirmed teachers reported greater well-being and better teacher–student relationships than their control counterparts, and their classrooms were rated as more rigorous and more supportive of students’ academic growth by trained observers.
Could mitigating persistent worries about belonging in the transition to college improve adult life for black Americans? To examine this question, we conducted a long-term follow-up of a randomized ...social-belonging intervention delivered in the first year of college. This 1-hour exercise represented social and academic adversity early in college as common and temporary. As previously reported in
, the exercise improved black students' grades and well-being in college. The present study assessed the adult outcomes of these same participants. Examining adult life at an average age of 27, black adults who had received the treatment (versus control) exercise 7 to 11 years earlier reported significantly greater career satisfaction and success, psychological well-being, and community involvement and leadership. Gains were statistically mediated by greater college mentorship. The results suggest that addressing persistent social-psychological concerns via psychological intervention can shape the life course, partly by changing people's social realities.
Spirituality is an important, but oft-overlooked, aspect of the self that may affect college students' wellbeing and belonging. Few studies have systematically examined closeness to God and spiritual ...struggles as predictors of college student wellbeing during early college, which is a critical window for identity development. Moreover, research exploring interactions between spiritual struggles and closeness to God in predicting wellbeing outcomes is scarce. We address these gaps in the literature with an analytic sample comprised of 839 first-year college participants who identify as religious. The results of correlational analyses and linear mixed effect models are presented. Closeness to God was associated with greater wellbeing and belonging, and spiritual struggles were associated with lower wellbeing and belonging. In exploratory analyses, a moderating effect of closeness to God on the relation between spiritual struggles and negative outcomes was observed. Implications for higher education and college student development are discussed.
A promising way to mitigate inequality is by addressing students' worries about belonging. But where and with whom is this social-belonging intervention effective? Here we report a team-science ...randomized controlled experiment with 26,911 students at 22 diverse institutions. Results showed that the social-belonging intervention, administered online before college (in under 30 minutes), increased the rate at which students completed the first year as full-time students, especially among students in groups that had historically progressed at lower rates. The college context also mattered: The intervention was effective only when students' groups were afforded opportunities to belong. This study develops methods for understanding how student identities and contexts interact with interventions. It also shows that a low-cost, scalable intervention generalizes its effects to 749 4-year institutions in the United States.
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