Enhancing Students' Sense of Belonging through Interactive Online Interventions

This project aims to serve the national interest by promoting equal learning opportunities and success for all students, irrespective of race, gender, or first-generation college status. Educational attainment is widely recognized as a key determinant of economic success, yet studies show that many students who discontinue college do so due to feeling a sense of belonging uncertainty.

Research shows that students who feel that they belong in their courses are more likely to seek and utilize resources and exhibit higher levels of self-efficacy, engagement, and achievement. However, many instructors do not promote a sense of belonging in their courses, possibly due to a lack of understanding of its importance or limitations such as inadequate training or lack of class time.

This project seeks to address this gap by leveraging the power of established psychological interventions to develop four 15-minute interactive online interventions (IOIs) for cultivating students' sense of belonging. The IOIs are innovative in that they will be designed to offer instructors flexible and user-friendly methods for incorporating them into their courses with minimal effort, thereby encouraging widespread adoption and maximizing impact.

The IOIs are expected to enhance students' sense of belonging, similar to in-person interventions, ultimately leading to improved academic success and retention, particularly in courses that embrace evidence-based active engagement (EBAE) pedagogies. This is particularly significant in the context of STEM, where persistent challenges related to representation underscore the urgent need for interventions aimed at fostering inclusivity and support for all students.

The project’s research plan aims to investigate the effectiveness of online psychological interventions compared to in-person methods in promoting students' sense of belonging and achievement in introductory physics courses. To achieve this, students will be randomly assigned to receive interventions through either in-person or online delivery (IOIs) at various points throughout the semester.

Students' sense of belonging will be assessed using self-report surveys administered at the beginning and end of the term, while academic success will be measured using final exam scores. Linear regressions will be conducted to analyze the effects of interventions (IOI vs. face-to-face) on students' sense of belonging and final exam performance, while controlling for students' baseline levels of belonging, high-school GPA, race, gender, first-generation college status, and instructor use of EBAE teaching strategies.

In addition, we will test for two- and three-way interactions to explore the extent to which the relation between intervention format (IOI vs. in-person) and students’ sense of belonging and achievement are moderated by factors such as race, gender, first-generation college status, and the use of EBAE. Although the research focuses on introductory physics courses, the broad applicability of the interventions across domains suggests potential benefits for student outcomes across disciplines.

The IOIs and best practices guide will be freely accessible to instructors through ComPADRE, a national digital library of educational resources. Research findings will be disseminated through presentations at national conferences, workshops, and peer-reviewed publications, adding to the limited research on the use of psychological interventions in introductory physics courses, particularly interventions administered online.

The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.