Effects of a Brief Intervention on Students’ Sense of Belonging

Sense of belonging (SOB), the opposite of alienation, is considered one of the key components of students’ well-being. While past research has aimed to improve minority students’ SOB, the current study at a Dutch university addresses all first-year students’ SOB regardless of their minority status. The current study is the first to investigate the effectiveness of a lay theory intervention that aims to strengthen student’s SOB either with respect to the social context or to institutional aspects. The one-hour intervention comprises a writing, reading, and discussion exercise which conveys the message that worries about belonging are common among first-year students and diminish over time. SOB was assessed with an extensive measure that distinguishes three SOB dimensions: university, student, and teacher. The hypotheses were tested with a 2x3 (time [first posttest, second posttest] x condition [social, institutional, control]) between-subjects post-test design. The intervention was ineffective in enhancing students’ SOB in the Dutch university context, whereas exploratory analyses revealed that students’ personality traits are predictive of their SOB. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of SOB interventions outside the U.S. to determine their broader applicability.