The Impact of Campus Environments on Sense of Belonging for First-Generation College Students

The Impact of Campus Environments on Sense of Belonging for First-Generation College Students Samuel D. Museus (bio) and Ting-Han Chang (bio) First-generation students (FGS) face significant disparities in persistence and degree completion (Ishitani, 2016). One factor that increases the likelihood that students will persist to graduation is finding a sense of belonging in college (Gopalan however, these students are less represented (16% of undergraduates) at moderately or highly selective public research universities in the Midwest. At the time of this study, the participating campus enrolled about 43,700 undergraduates, approximately 11% of whom were FGS. To conduct this study, we administered a campus environments survey to all undergraduates in Spring 2017. A total of 1,049 self-identified FGS (about 22% of all enrolled FGS) completed the survey and were included in the final sample. The initial sample included more women (63%) than men (37%). White students were the largest racial group (41%), followed by Latinx (25%), Asian American (14%), Black (9%), multiracial (3%), and Native American and Pacific Islander (less than 1%) students. The sample included first-year (20%), sophomore (20%), junior (27%), and senior (33%) students. To correct for overrepresentation of women and Students of Color, we applied proportional weights based on gender and race to ensure that the representation of each gender and racial subgroup was represented in the sample at rates proportionate to their representation in the total FGS population. The survey...