Place Attachment and Place Identity: Undergraduate Students’ Place Bonding on Campus

Abstract

Abstract University is considered as a bridge between home and society for the undergraduate students. Campus life is a unique place experience which is very important on their journey to adulthood. Although numerous studies explored the students performance on campus, little discussion has addressed the undergraduate students’ place bonding on campus from the perspectives of place attachment and place identity. To fill such a gap, this paper explores the influence and intensity of campus environment on the development of place attachment and place identity in undergraduate students at University Sains Malaysia (USM). The main instrument involved in this study is questionnaire that is proposed with five scales: demographic information, physical environment, social environment, cultural and academic environment, and place attachment and place identity. The results of this study showed a current and holistic student-place relationship to campus. Generally, it illustrated that the students in USM showed relatively strong attachment and identity to the campus, while the extent of place identity was comparatively weaker than place attachment. Specifically, first, students in different study level showed different extent of place attachment and place identity to campus. Both students’ extent of place attachment and place identity followed the same order (from high to low): juniors, seniors, sophomores, and freshmen. Second, national students showed higher attachment and identity to campus than international students. Third, through bivariate correlations analysis, the results also showed some most influential variables to affect students’ place attachment and place identity.