Sense of Belonging

A primary goal of the Student Voices Initiative is to examine student belonging in order to improve the engagement (and, eventually, academic achievement, retention, and progression) of incoming students by identifying the experiences that help and hinder their connection to college. We will focus on factors contributing to students’ sense of belonging—the belief that one fits in with peers, colleagues, and teachers (Walton & Cohen, 2007, 2011). Research from the field of educational psychology suggests that a sense of school belonging is positively associated with positive affect (Anderman, 1999), adjustment (Van Ryzin et al., 2009), self-efficacy and perceptions of ability (Freeman et al., 2007; Kia-Keating & Ellis, 2007; Veilleux et al., 2013), behavioral and emotional engagement (Wilson et al., 2015), persistence intentions and behavior (Davis et al., 2019; Good et al., 2012), and academic performance (Roeser et al., 1996; Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2004).

Unlike other factors contributing to engagement and dropout (e.g., school resources, familial pressures), belonging and other learning mindsets can be altered through interventions targeting students’ beliefs about school or their perceptions of the learning environment (Walton & Wilson, 2018).

Implementing protocols intended to learn directly from students will enable us to identify which aspects of the college experience are most important for cultivating an adaptive sense of belonging. Identifying targeted areas for supporting belonging has the potential to help all students, and can be particularly powerful for traditionally underrepresented students and students who tend to worry about their belonging.

Previous data has indicated that 43% of first year students across the TBR system experience high levels of belonging uncertainty in college. When students are unsure whether or not they belong at their school, they are more likely to disengage from classes and drop out at a higher rate. Our protocols are designed to encourage students to discuss what helps and hinders their sense of belonging so we can better support them in the future.

Providing students with the space to share their perspectives and learning across institutions also provides a blueprint for sustaining discussions about belonging beyond the scope of this initiative alone. Importantly, these conversations and focus groups are led by current students, rather than staff, faculty, or outside consultants.

This project began as a joint initiative between Motivate Lab and Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis, TN, with the initial goal of elevating student voices and improving engagement, retention, and success. After an initial development and pilot period, the Student Voices Initiative scaled to 4 additional community college campuses: Chattanooga State Community College, Cleveland State Community College, Nashville State Community College, and Pellissippi State Community College.

Timeline

IRB Submission

Institutional Review Boards (IRB), or the administrative body established to review research projects to protect the welfare of human subjects, vary from campus to campus. Each school has its own IRB protocol paperwork and set of requirements, usually easily available through your institution’s website. If you're unclear where to begin, contacting your Office of Institutional Research could be a good first step. While each protocol application varies, there are some commonly asked questions. Thild folder provides sample language to respond to the following IRB questions:

• Project Summary
• How will you keep the data secure?
• Who do you plan on sharing the data with?
• What possible risks do you envision there might be to subjects?
• How will your study be able to minimize those risks?

IRB approval can sometimes take a bit of back and forth and can be a timely process. We recommend submitting your IRB protocol paperwork as soon as possible. Refer to this sample IRB language documentl when completing your IRB application.

Note: One of the most challenging aspects of IRB is related to the distribution of gift cards as incentives for participation. Please check with your institution to determine feasibility.

Identify Faculty/Staff Champions

You'll want to identify an individual or a group of individuals that are committed to planning and executing the initiative. These champions might be faculty, advisors, administrators, or staff.

• IRB submission
• Recruitment and training of student focus group facilitators
• Recruitment of student focus group participants
• On-call availability during focus groups
• Facilitating payment to students
• Management of focus group registration
• Management of data entering and coding

Recruiting Facilitators

A key tenet of this initiative is that focus groups are led by students. As such, you'll need to begin thinking about where you will recruit student leaders, as well as focus group participants.

Number of Facilitators

When considering your recruitment plan for student facilitators, you’ll want to answer the following questions for your school:

1. Ideally, how many total students will participate in focus groups?
2. How big do I want each focus group to be?
3. How many focus groups should there be?

Though there are no “one size fits all” answers here,we recommend that each focus group has about 6-10 participants. Because your students will probably have complex schedules andwe recommend having a 1 facilitator and 1 co-facilitator/group, you’ll likely need a pool of student facilitators (10-20, depending on school size and student availability).

Qualities of a Student Facilitators

The goal of focus groups is for a student facilitator to lead a fruitful and productive conversation around sense of belonging with their peers. Student facilitators are generally leaders on and around campus. They need to be comfortable facilitating a conversation with a diverse group of students.

Top qualities of student facilitators might include:

• Comfort with public speaking
• Responsible
• Practices active listening
• Trustworthy
• Demonstrates leadership skills

Finding Student Facilitators

• Leadership groups on campus, such as Orientation Leaders, Peer Mentors, or Student Government, may have qualified pools of students to recruit from.
• As much as possible, student facilitators should be reflective of the student population, so finding affinity group leaders, such as leaders within the Black Student Union or Veterans Affairs, may be a good choice.
• Consider asking faculty members for recommendations of potential student leader

Recruiting Participants

• Some schools have contacted leaders of extracurricular clubs and affinity groups to recruit participants.
  • Recruiting a participant pool from the same organization or affinity group may allow for richer and more open discussion, as these students will already be familiar with eachother.
• Schools have also constructed recruitment flyers to distribute, which provide a brief explanation of the project, description of a participant's role, and contact information for registration.
• Compensation for participation should be emphasized during the recruitment process.
• Recruitment efforts should also make clear that your institution wants to hear their students' voices, elevate them, and make meaningful changes based on their responses.

Facilitator Training

Student facilitators will need to be trained on the logistics and procedures of running a focus group. Ideally, student facilitators will first participate in a focus group led by a faculty/staff member, so they have the experience of being a participant, while simultaneously viewing what will be expected of them as the facilitator. Following the focus group, the faculty/staff member should lead a debrief and Q&A session that allows for students to provide feedback, ask questions, and gain clarity for their next steps. Finally, student facilitators should learn data entry protocols.

Most training sessions take about 3 hours (1 hour to participate in a focus group, ~1 hour of debrief and Q&A, ~1 hour of data entry). If students are interested, and you have the availability, you might also consider having students practice their facilitation during training. Refer to this sample facilitator training agenda

Running a Focus Group

1. Prior to the focus group, the student facilitators should read the script and FAQ sheet and decide who will take on the role of facilitator and co-facilitator.
2. To set up the room, the facilitators should ensure there is a whiteboard and markers, set up desks and chairs in a circle, test the audio recorder, and place all participant handouts at each desk. Other necessary materials include a timer, pens, and gift cards.
3. During the focus group, facilitators should begin by welcoming guests, introducing themselves. Facilitators should follow the script as much as possible during the focus group.
4. Once the facilitators complete the script, they may stop the audio recording and distribute the gift cards. After participants exit, student facilitators should number participant packets, complete the facilitator cover sheet, clip all packets together and place in an envelope, then give this envelope to a faculty member for data entering and coding.

• Student Facilitator Script
• Participant Packet
• Focus Group Cover Sheet
• Focus Group Reflection Sheet
• Student Facilitator Checklist
• Student Facilitator FAQs
• Student Facilitator Pro Tips

Data Entry and Coding

Enter the responses from participants' packets into an excel spreadsheet**goal is to limit any errors**

• Data Entry Instructions
• Sample Data Entry Tool (provide link)

Why is it Important to Code Data?
Coding data will allow you to more easily interpret the open-ended questions from the focus group protocol by identifying and quantifying common themes. After this data is coded, the Excel spreadsheet will automatically populate the codes into graphs, which your institution can use to create reports or share to administrators, staff, and students. This process will allow your institution to make data-driven decisions to support students' belonging on campus.

What is a Codebook?
A codebook is a file that contains data and information on the data (variable names/values, questions, participant IDs, factor definititons, etc.) The codebook for this project is an excel file where students have entered data from participant packets. Students will code this data in the codebook. The codebook also contains 'factors' (or categories responses are coded for) defintions that our team has identified as most common and encompassing of students' responses. Your school may find that other codes encompass your students' responses better, so feel free to adapt these codes based on your student population and responses received.

After data from the focus groups has been entered, a student will code the data. To do so, a faculty member will need to give the coder access to the codebook. Student coders will only be coding responses on the 'school helped', 'school hindered', 'self helped', and 'self hindered' tabs of the excel sheet.

• Data Coding Instructions

Next Steps

It is up to your individual institution to determine several factors associated with the focus groups, including:

• Number of focus groups
• Frequency of focus groups
• Duration of initiative
• Ongoing funding sources
• Integration into other campus initiatives

Ultimately, we recommend continuing SVI until you have gathered data from a representative sample of your institution. For some institutions, depending on the size and nature of your institution, this may mean 100 students; for others, it may mean 500 students. The final - and perhaps most critical - component of SVI is ensuring administrators and decision-makers are able to hear these student voices. Compiling themes, learnings, quotes, and recommendations from students may take several forms. We encourage you to work directly with your campus' student facilitators to decide how to share these learnings widely.