(20a) Investigating Belonging for STEM Students

A study is currently being conducted to investigate belonging for STEM students and its relationship to academic engagement, academic performance and other related factors.  The participating institutions are a Research 1 university, a large teaching university, a small private faith-based university, a small private historically black college/university (HBCU) and a small private women’s college.  The institutions were chosen to represent a range of academic and social environments.  Students at the five institutions completed a survey and a subset of students participated in interviews or focus groups.  The surveys included Likert scale items on belonging at the class, major and university levels.  The survey also included some open ended questions related to belonging.  Thus far, the data suggest that outside communities significantly influence student academic engagement and, generally speaking, students’ sense of belonging does not increase monotonically by year in school. The results of this study will be presented in poster format.