Understanding Belonging in Fully Online Education Environments

Lauren Mottle - Digital Education Service

Project overview

This project supports the enhancement of practices around providing a high quality, accessible, inclusive, and rewarding student experience on fully online courses by exploring the student experience of online learning. Building on existing literatures highlighting the importance of a sense of belonging to student success, this research asks: how do fully online, postgraduate learners define belonging in online learning spaces? What are the opportunities and barriers to creating a sense of belonging in this context? What are the pedagogical implications in module design and delivery for fostering a sense of belonging for professional online learners?

Key findings

The majority of online postgraduate students surveyed value and desire a sense of
belonging, even where they have study motivations that may appear primarily
transactional on the surface.

2 Heron, Emma, “Friendship as method: reflections on a new approach to understanding student experiences
in higher education,” Journal of Further and Higher Education 44(3)(2020): 393-407.
It is important for me to feel a sense of belonging during my studies.

• Online postgraduate students feel a sense of belonging when they perceive their digital
presence to have value, primarily experienced when their contributions have a visible
impact in moving learning forward.

“What matters to me most is feeling that my presence is needed and makes a
difference amongst my peers, not only because of my contributions but also because I
am part of the programme.” – Survey participant
“I suppose there’s an element of feeling like you’re valuable. And, you know, you’ve
got contributions that would be missed if you weren’t there.” – Listening Room
participant
• Informal academic spaces and exchanges are a key locus of fostering belonging.

• Module leaders’/module delivery staff’s approach to module facilitation, both through
asynchronous and synchronous methods, can have significant impacts on students’
sense of belonging.

“I've had one of the academic team respond directly and make like a personalised
recommendation for reading based on the things I've talked about…they've taken the time to
engage with what I've written and suggest something specific to my potential interests.” –

Listening Room participant
• Students view discussion boards and webinars as key opportunities to make connections
but often don’t experience them in this way.

• Online postgraduate students seek a sense of connection and belonging with the
University as an institution, even if they are studying from well beyond Leeds’
geographical location.

Implications for practice

Like online pedagogy generally, design and facilitation for online spaces is not a simple
matter of transporting what works in face-to-face contexts to digital environments;
therefore, staff delivering in online environments would benefit from support and
guidance around best practice for online facilitation and how to most effectively manage
both synchronous and asynchronous online spaces.

• A hidden curriculum exists around webinar and discussion board participation,
assessment, and expectations around reading suggested literature that hinders student
confidence and a sense of being valued. Staff delivering in online environments should
surface and clarify these expectations wherever possible.

• Explorations into how to create online spaces for informal academic connections
between students would provide an important avenue to enhance the sense of
community and belonging for distance learning students.

• Delays to support through needed university services hinders students’ sense of
belonging; investment in the resources that help students in their time of need would
have an important and positive influence on their sense of being valued by the
institution.

If you want to find out more details about this fellowship or what the next steps were upon completion please read the full snapshot or contact Lauren (l.mottle@leeds.ac.uk)

Project start date: September 2023