What does it mean for higher education students to belong?

Abstract

A sense of belonging can have many benefits for higher education (HE) students, including increased persistence, motivation, engagement, academic achievement, and psychological wellbeing. However, there is currently a lack of conceptual clarity about what a sense of belonging means for HE students. Moreover, common definitions and conceptualisations of belonging are rarely based on data derived from students themselves, which limits achievement of construct validity. This study presents a comprehensive scoping review to examine patterns and gaps in how students’ sense of belonging is defined in the multidisciplinary HE literature. After rigorous searches across multiple databases, N = 353 pu..