Abstract
This study was about peer attachment and learning styles being moderated by a sense of belonging among students during the COVID-19 era. Using an analytical cross-sectional survey design, 284 final-year undergraduates were selected through stratified-proportionate and convenient sampling procedures. Data was gathered from the respondents using Learning Preference Scale (Owens & Straton, 1980), Adolescent Friendship Attachment Scale (Wilkinson, 2008) and Psychological Sense of School Membership (Goodenow, 1993). The data was analysed using descriptive (Frequencies and Percentages) and inferential statistics (Multivariate Multiple Regression, Simple Moderation with Hayes Process Macro and Multivariate Analysis of Variance).The study revealed that most students engaged in less peer attachment, felt less sense of belonging while secure attachment predicted the individual learning style of students. Furthermore, secure attachment and anxious attachments predicted the cooperative learning style of students while anxious attachment and avoidant attachment predicted the competitive learning style of students. Further, a sense of belonging moderated not peer attachment and learning styles of students, while no significant differences were found between male and female students in terms of peer attachment, learning styles, and sense of belonging. Therefore, it was recommended that students should practice individual learning styles most often but could collaborate with a few colleagues in some academic situations during this period of COVID-19. This is to help foster closeness and belongingness among the students.
Highlights
One major aspect of human lives that had a huge impact from the pandemic was the education sector
The results showed that none of the variables violated the equality of variance assumptions as secure attachment (.580), anxious attachment (.372), avoidant attachment (.851), individual learning style (.051), cooperative learning style (.901), competitive learning style (.770), belonging sense of belonging (.652), accepting sense of of belonging (.730), and rejection sense of belonging (.940), which was all produced sig. values greater than
It is evident from the results that the presence of COVID-19 has distracted students to the extent that most of them has low peer attachement and exhibited low belongingness
Summary
One major aspect of human lives that had a huge impact from the pandemic was the education sector. As a contemporary platform for sharing information in most advanced countries, this online teaching and learning became a new thing and problematic in most universities in Ghana, especially the University of Cape Coast in Ghana (Henaku, 2020; Agormedah, Henaku, Ayite, & Ansah, 2020) This eminent developmental shift of academic engagement between educational instructors and their students appeared to have created new tasks among students in terms of managing their peer attachments, making efforts to employ the best learning styles and developing a sense of belonging to their respective universities. The choice of online method of teaching and learning as a means to curb the spread of Covid 19 led to students being away from school and their peers This greatly affected peer attachment and sense of belonging. The authors wish to find out if the affected students peer attachment will predict different learning styles with a moderation role of sense of belonging
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