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Introduction and Background
Methodology
Analyses
Results
• The first year of college is a challenging transitional time for students.
Students must navigate a new culture and form new relationships with
peers, faculty, and staff. Social and academic interactions during college
lead to involvement and better integration, which is related to
persistence and retention.1
• Involvement in college has been defined as the investment of physical
and psychological energy into an object,2 and involvement can be both
academic and social, though academic involvement has been identified
as being relatively more important than social involvement. 3
Involvement in college is part of the “environments” in Astin’s I-E-O
model.2
• Sense of belonging is the extent to which students are integrated into the
college, is highly related to the concept that one matters and is valued by
individuals and a community, and a result of feeling that one has access
to sufficient support. It is how a person assesses themselves or their role
in relation to a group, and it is also the behavior or response that follows
this assessment. 5,6
• Research shows that sense of belonging is higher in students who are
involved in what Kuh 4 has entitled high-impact practices: for example,
learning communities and first-year seminars.
1. Students who participated in over twenty ChampChange events
from Fall 2014 through February 2015 were significantly more
likely to feel as if they belonged on campus than students who
participated in less than twenty (p < .001). High ChampChange
(M=60.75, SD= 1409.54), low ChampChange (M=8.97,
SD=6.36).
2.
Research Questions:
1. Will higher involvement levels on campus as measured by
ChampChange points be related to higher levels of self-reported sense of
belonging?
2. What are the percentages of first-year students participating in high-
impact practices at MSU?
Participants:
• 1,000 first-time full-time students entering fall term 2014 chosen by
random selection and sent survey with Qualtrics
• 26% response rate and a total of 256 responses
• Students’ sense of belonging was assessed using the General
Belongingness Scale (GBS) 7
• Involvement operationalized as ChampChange point totals. Students
may receive ChampChange points on campus for variety of activities
• Previously collected data obtained on participation in high-impact first-
year practices on campus.
 First-year seminar
 Special pre-orientation programs (Earth Sciences, the
Leadership program, and Adventures MSU)
 Living- learning communities (LLCs) which included an
academic course component (leadership and business)
Conclusions
1. ChampChange was divided into a categorical variable based on
reasoning that after approximately twenty weeks of the academic year,
students participating in over twenty events/activities might be defined as
more involved, since this works out to about one activity per week. This
also resulted in fairly equal sample sizes for each group (under 20, (low),
N= 117, and 20 and over (high), N =139).
ANOVA nonparametric test Kruskal Wallis was performed with sense of
belonging as the outcome variable, and ChampChange events attended
(high = 20 or over and low = under 20) as the predictor variable.
2. Descriptive statistics were performed on the high-impact practices
data.
93%
7%
10%
Participation in High- Impact Practices at MSU
First Year Seminar Pre-orientation Programs LLCs
1.
• Though not a full measure of involvement on campus, since
ChampChange points do not include a specific measure of academic
or curricular involvement, results indicate that there is a connection
between a general measure of involvement and sense of belonging.
• Study uses a measure of involvement unique to MSU and explicitly
compares “highly involved” students to those less involved.
• If we know that feeling as if you “fit” or belong is related to positive
outcomes such as persistence, and is also related to involvement, that
means working intentionally to help students become involved and
integrated, socially and academically, is an important endeavor.
2.
• Results around high-impact practices indicate MSU does not have
many first-year students participating in high-impact practices on
campus beyond the first-year seminar. In light of what we know about
the importance of high-impact practices and engagement, 4 MSU may
want to work on increasing these opportunities for first-year students.
The relationship between belongingness and involvement in
first-year students at MSU
Christy N. Oliveri
Adult & Higher Education
Program, Education
Department
Involvement
Academic
and Social
Integration
Fit/Sense of
Belonging
Success
Persistence
Retention

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