Where Does a Belonging Intervention Increase Receipt of College Credentials? The Role of Institutional Affordances

• In Event: Context Matters: Learning Environments' Impact When Motivational Interventions Are (or Aren't) Effective

Abstract

Background
Critical to a more just and equitable society is increasing the likelihood that students who begin college can ultimately complete it. Concerningly, credential attainment rates are lower for racially minoritized students, low-income students, and first-generation college students (“marginalized students”) (Pretlow et al., 2020). While many factors contribute to credential attainment, we focus on two: institution type and students’ sense of belonging.
At the institutional level, schools afford students opportunities to earn different degrees to different extents. For example, students at selective four-year colleges are more likely to earn bachelor’s degrees than are students at more inclusive four-year colleges who, in turn, are more likely to earn these degrees than students at two-year colleges (Chen et al., 2019; Hess et al., 2009).
At the individual level, feelings of belonging support students’ academic engagement (Walton & Brady, 2017). Unfortunately, a secure sense of belonging is not equally accessible for all students. Marginalized students are more likely to question their belonging, in part because they are aware of group disadvantages, including negative stereotypes and underrepresentation. This awareness can create a self-fulfilling uncertainty about belonging: it can lead students to perceive evidence that they do not belong in college even in common events like feeling left out of social gatherings or earning low grades. In the face of such challenges, students may disengage from school, distancing themselves from the resources and people who could support their academic pursuits.
Importantly, this process can be interrupted. The social belonging intervention offers students non-pejorative ways to make sense of such challenges to belonging in college (Walton & Brady, 2021). This reading-and-writing-based exercise can improve various aspects of students’ experiences, including relationships, achievement, and one-year persistence, often with greatest benefit to marginalized students. We extend prior work by asking: Can the belonging intervention also increase students’ likelihood to earn a college credential? If so, in what type of post-secondary settings is this gain most likely?
Methods
We conducted a longitudinal follow-up of a randomized control trial of the belonging intervention originally implemented with college-bound high school seniors (N=1,641) at urban charter schools (Yeager et al., 2016). We used National Student Clearing House data to examine students’ subsequent receipt of postsecondary credentials.
Results & Significance
Overall, we estimated a positive but statistically unreliable benefit (3 percentage points) of the intervention on credential attainment. However, when considering institution type, we estimated a larger and statistically reliable treatment effect on receipt of bachelor’s degrees for students at selective four-year schools but not for students at more inclusive four-year schools or at two-year schools. One possible explanation for this pattern is that selective four-year colleges have greater resources and, thus, can be more responsive to students’ increased engagement post-intervention. Another is that effects are greater in contexts that evoke greater doubts about belonging. These findings contribute to a growing literature emphasizing intervention heterogeneity and the importance of contexts in facilitating effects. In the right contexts, social psychological interventions can benefit important human capital outcomes like credential attainment.

Authors

• Shannon T. Brady, Wake Forest University

• Gregory Mariotti Walton, Stanford University

• Parker Goyer, The College Board

• David Yeager, University of Texas at Austin