Examining Students’ Racialized Experiences of Quality of Interaction and Supportive Environment in Relation to Sense of Belonging and Student Satisfaction

• In Event: Disrupting Racial Inequality in College Students’ Experiences: Insights From National Survey Research

Abstract

Decades of student engagement research demonstrates the importance of quality of interaction and supportive environment to student success in college (Mayhew, et al, 2016). Yet, students’ experience with these vital dimensions of their undergraduate education is strongly influenced by their identities. Recent analyses using a person-centered cluster analysis approach with data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) demonstrate the complexities of results for supportive environment, which shows significant variation in mean scores among groups (NSSE, 2023). In this paper, we extend our analysis to include measures of quality of interaction, comprising students' relationships with institutional agents to promote their learning and success, and examine these in relation to students’ sense of belonging and their satisfaction with their college experience. These two outcomes are significant to student retention and success in college and importantly, represent aspects of the undergraduate experience that colleges and universities can influence and change.

Of course, much has changed in colleges and universities through the pandemic, including shifts in the delivery of support services and interaction with advisors and changes in students’ expectations (Abrams, 2022; Arday & Jones, 2022; Edelman, 2023; Hess, 2023). These changes are particularly salient to fostering a sense of belonging, satisfaction and mattering among racially marginalized students in higher education. As all of higher education re-orients to practice as we emerge through the pandemic and reckon with racial injustice, we should actively focus on how institutions are adapting their practices to fulfill the changing needs of racially marginalized students. Current data from national research projects involving many colleges and universities (538 bachelor’s-granting institutions participated in NSSE 2023) can provide helpful early indicators of the contemporary state of practice and variation in students’ experience by race/ethnicity.

This study uses the most recent NSSE data to examine students’ experiences by race/ethnicity, controlling for institution type, on two Engagement Indicators – Quality of Interaction and Supportive Environment – that are particularly salient to student success in 2022-23, as campuses re-invent support services and students re-establish their relationships with administrators and units and support services. These environmental aspects are analyzed in relation to Sense of Belonging and Satisfaction measures. New results for an experimental item set on Mattering and Marginality (2023 only) will also help us discuss a more comprehensive and culturally relevant approach to interaction and support.

The question about how these results should influence institutional actions to improve campus racial climate and culture is a natural implication for this study. Institutions can gain more insight into why and how institutional agents are critical to racially marginalized students’ development and maintenance of support systems. This information could also contribute to institutions reestablishing training and guidance to institutional agents on how they can adequately support racially marginalized students given current cultural contexts. Information gathered from these results can broadly be applied to examining how racially marginalized students navigate the newly adapted systems institutions have set in place due to the pandemic and racial injustice and guide efforts to dismantle racism in higher education.

Authors

• Jillian L. Kinzie, Indiana University

• Christen Priddie, Indiana University