Campus Connectedness Research Articles

Collaboration, connectedness, and community: An examination of the factors influencing student persistence in virtual communities

Institutions of higher education are being called upon to provide a more robust pathway to a college degree and improve upon the advanced workforce for the needs of the 21st century. While active collaborative learning environments have been encouraged in higher education to improve student engagement, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to connecting the two research areas of collaborative learning and student intention to persist. This research fills this gap by creating and conducting research to examine a model that measures the factors that significantly influence a student's persistence in a virtual collaborative learning environment. The model examines how collaborative learning, campus connectedness, sense of community, organizational commitment, and turnover intention influence student persistence. The model was tested using a sample of students who participated in a virtual learning community (VLC) and the results suggest that all but one of the factors were found to significantly influence student persistence, with the final factor dependent on the number of hours of system usage. We discuss the implications of the research and the model for team-based theory and organizational practice in education and teamwork.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Coping, Connectedness and Psychological Distress among University Students

Globally the high prevalence of psychological distress among university students is concerning. Two factors associated with low psychological distress among university students are adaptive coping strategies and campus connectedness. The current study examines the cross-cultural differences among university students across three countries, Australia, United States of America and Hong Kong in the utilization of academic coping strategies, levels of campus connectedness and psychological distress. Cross-cultural differences were examined using the theory of cultural orientations; individualism and collectivism. Participants consisted of 217 university students. The results indicated no significant differences between the countries on individualism or collectivism or on the reported use of academic coping strategies and levels of campus connectedness. Lower use of avoidance coping and higher levels of campus connectedness predicted significantly lower psychological distress for university students in all countries. The implications of the results are discussed along with limitations and future directions.

Exposure to preincident behavior and reporting in college students.

Campus targeted violence is preceded by noticeable, alarming behavior, and reporting improvement efforts have been suggested to increase students’ willingness to inform campus authorities of forewarning actions. Reporting improvement techniques have been most successful with material appealing to the perceptions of high-risk students (i.e., those likely to observe and not report). The current study examined the characteristics of students that view threatening behavior and lack willingness to report with a large, Midwestern, undergraduate sample (n 450). Approximately 35% of the sample (i.e., n 157) indicated observing preincident behavior on campus, and 65% of these individuals (i.e., n 101) described unwillingness to inform police in the majority of hypothetical threatening situations. Males and students with self-reported delinquency exhibited greater unwillingness to report. Negative feelings toward campus police and high feelings of safety on campus corresponded with unwillingness to report. Students observing preincident behavior had more campus connectedness, negative views of campus police, and fewer feelings of safety on campus. Thus, reporting improvement efforts appears highly important to advancing the violence prevention abilities of campus threat assessment teams. Peer education could generate lasting attitudinal and behavioral change for high-risk students. These strategies could involve highly connected student leaders respected by males and students endorsing delinquency and material formatted in a nonconfrontational manner.

Considering the Role of Affect in Learning: Monitoring Students' Self-Efficacy, Sense of Belonging, and Science Identity

While emphasis is often placed on assessing students' conceptual knowledge, less has been placed on investigating affective aspects of student biology learning. In this paper, we explore self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and science identity, as well as emerging assessment tools to monitor these dimensions of students' learning.

Psychosocial Moderators of Perceived Stress, Anxiety and Depression in University Students: An International Study

Extensive research shows university students experience high levels of stress, which can lead to the development of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Preliminary evidence supports the role of psychosocial factors such as perceived social support (PSS) and campus connectedness (CC) as protective factors in the development of mental health problems in university students. However, research conducted on the potential ameliorating effects of social support on stress applying Cohen and Wills’ (1985) stress-buffering hypothesis produced weak, inconsistent, and even contradictory results. In addition, little attention has been given to examining the protective role of CC in the relationships between perceived stress, anxiety, and depression. The cur- rent study examined the applicability of CC and PSS in buffering the relationships been perceived stress, anxiety, and depression across an international sample comprised of university students (N = 206) from Australia, Hong Kong, and the United States. The prediction that CC and PSS would moderate the relationships between perceived stress, anxiety, and depression was partially sup- ported. The results indicated CC moderated the relationship between perceived stress and depression but did not moderate the relationship between perceived stress and anxiety. PSS did not moderate the relationship between perceived stress and depression or the relationship between perceived stress and anxiety, thus rejecting the stress-buffering hypothesis. These findings sug- gest less emphasis should be placed on PSS as a protective factor, with universities focusing on enhancing CC to reduce the high prevalence of mental health problems to promote psychological wellbeing among students.

Examining Characteristics of Resilience among University Students: An International Study

Attending university is a particularly stressful time due to unique emergent stressors such as changes in environment, loss or diminishment of social support networks, academic pressures, developing peer relationships, and financial management. There is growing recognition that these common stressors may have deleterious effects on the mental health of students. Resilience, a personality characteristic that moderates the negative effects of stress and promotes adaptation, has been associated with increased psychological well-being. Despite a growing body of research on resilience and its clinical significance in preventing mental health problems, relatively little is known about contributing factors for resilience in well-adjusted university students. This current study examined the characteristics of university students reporting high and low resilience for elucidating its clinical implications in preventing mental health problem, primarily focusing on potentially modifiable psychosocial variables. An international sample of 214 university students recruited from Australia, the United States of America, and Hong Kong universities completed measures of resilience, perceived social support, campus connectedness, and psychological distress. Results of a one-way between groups multivariate analysis of variance revealed that perceived social support, campus connectedness, and psychological distress accounted for a significant proportion (36%) of the variance between the high and low resilience groups of university students. University students with low levels of resilience reported significantly lower levels of perceived social support, campus connectedness, and higher levels of psychological distress, in comparison to university students with high levels of resilience. Findings offer important implications for the development of resilience-based interventions among university students.

The team identification–social psychological health model: Sport fans gaining connections to others via sport team identification.

Previous work has consistently found positive relationships between levels of sport team identification and social psychological well-being. According to the Team Identification‐Social Psychological Health Model, these effects result from the increased social connections fans generate through their interest in the team. The current pair of investigations was designed to test the hypotheses that (1) team identification is positively related to social well-being and (2) team identification is positively related to social connections. In addition, the interrelationships among the variables were investigated (i.e., tests for mediation and moderation). In Study 1, a sample of 161 college students completed a questionnaire assessing demographics, identification with a local team, connections gained by following the team, and social well-being. Results indicated that, as expected, team identification was positively related to both well-being and social connections. Subsequent analyses failed to find evidence that social connections mediated or moderated the relationship between team identification and social psychological health. Study 2 (N 199 students from the same university as Study 1) replicated the results of the initial study using a more general measure of social connections (i.e., the Campus Connectedness Scale). Discussion includes the implications for the Team Identification‐Social Psychological Health Model and the directionality between identification and social connections.

An investigation of students' willingness to report threats of violence in campus communities.

Objective: This study extends prior work on students' willingness to report threats of violence to college-aged populations. Method: Undergraduate students (N = 967) were sampled from a large university in the Southern U.S. Results: Almost seventy percent (69%) of students endorsed being “at least somewhat willing” to report a threatening peer. Trust in the college support system (e.g., trust in police, administrators) was positively related to students' willingness to report threats of violence. Similarly, feeling connected to the campus environment was positively related to willingness to report threats directly and indirectly through trust in the college support system. In contrast, delinquency was negatively related to willingness to report and self-efficacy toward service (i.e., the belief that one can have a positive impact) only was positively related to reporting in the presence of trust in the college support system and campus connectedness. Lastly, fear of negative evaluation was unrelated to students' willingness to report. Conclusion: To facilitate threat reporting, it is important for students to feel connected to the campus community and trust in members of the college support system as self-efficacy toward service is not sufficient by itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Student Feelings of Connection to the Campus and Openness to Diversity and Challenge at a Large Research University: Evidence of Progress?

Previous research conducted by Pascarella and his colleagues (1996) has shown that undergraduate students tend to change toward greater openness and tolerance to diversity from their freshman to their sophomore year. Although the study by Pascarella includes many different types of universities in the United States, the average size of the entering freshman class in their research was reported to be approximately 4,000 students. While these findings are extremely valued in a general sense, Pascarella believed that they might not be found at very large universities. To our surprise, our findings indicated that large universities may have higher levels of openness to diversity and campus connectedness than what was originally explained by Pascarella.