Sense of belonging as ‘personalised dynamic narrative’

Ed Venn (School of Music), Carla Douglas (Quality Assurance (SCO)) and Karen Burland Clark (School of Music)

Project Overview

Our fellowship addresses current limitations in the scholarship, policy and practice of sense of belonging (SoB) by asking:
• how students might be supported to become critical, reflective narrators of their experiences;
• how such active, individual narrations yield meaningful data to inform measurable and impactful institutional SoB interventions.

It will trial a student-driven digital tool and supporting resources for engagement with SoB as a personalised dynamic narrative. The tool will enable institutions to gather useful data (for informing and evaluating SoB initiatives), but, crucially, shifts the locus of control to put students at the heart of the process, empowering them to develop strategies for meaningfully managing their personal SoB during and after their HE experiences.

Although positive correlations between student SoB and indicators of student success/wellbeing have long been recognised (Goodenow 1993; Tinto 2012; Strayhorn 2019), HE support for SoB is constrained by
(a) lack of consensus on how to define and measure it (Dost and Mazzoli Smith 2023), and
(b) the limitations of treating SoB ‘as a universally positive, uniform experience, and as a fixed state of being’ (Gravett and Ajjawi 2022, p.1393).
From this, the inspiration for this topic came from considering the ways in which the prior research expertise of the team members (Venn, SoB; Burland, identity; Douglas, student voice) could intersect and, working collaboratively, develop a tool and supporting resources that addressed limitations of existing data gathering methods and empowered students.

The research approach

We will be using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The development and review of the SoB tool itself will involve Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of a series of statements which students will rate on a likert scale. Qualitative data gathered through interviews with staff and students will be analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006), as part of a social constructionist epistemology. More creative methods, such as empathy mapping, will be utilised within the workshops where we will explore the value and limitations of the resources we develop; these data will also be explored using Thematic Analysis where appropriate.

If you would like to find out more about the project contact Ed Venn, Carla Douglas or Karen Burland Clark

Connect with Karen on LinkedIn

Each fellowship has a project sponsor that helps the fellows achieve impact across the institution. The sponsor for this fellowship is Niamh Mullen

Project start date: September 2025