Staege, Luisa (2024) First Year Students Perceived Similarity to Faculty and Student Mentors: Exploring Feelings of Belongingness. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
A student’s first semester at a new university comes with exciting and challenging experiences, which ultimately impact the level of satisfaction and motivation to obtain a degree in that learning environment. Different interpersonal factors have been proposed to influence student satisfaction in the past, such as feelings of belongingness. Mentorship programs have been suggested to have a positive impact on students as well, with student mentors being especially impacting. This research investigates how students’ feelings of belongingness are influenced by their level of perceived similarity to mentors. It was hypothesised that a higher level of perceived similarity leads to a greater sense of belonging, and that a student mentor evokes this more strongly than a faculty mentor. The study used a cross-sectional, correlational, observational design to examine the proposed relationship between perceived similarity and feelings of belongingness. First-year psychology students (N=180) completed an online questionnaire. It was found that generally a high level of perceived similarity to mentors correlates with a high level of sense of belonging (p<.01), that student mentors are perceived as significantly more similar than faculty mentors (p<.01) and that the correlation of student mentor similarity to feelings of belongingness alone is significant (p<.01), while the correlation of faculty mentor similarity to feelings of belongingness alone is not (p=.337). We conclude that student mentors evoke higher levels of perceived similarity in students and therefore have a greater impact on students’ feelings of belongingness. The dynamics between students and mentors, perceived similarity and the sense of belonging are discussed. Keywords: mentoring, perceived similarity, sense of belonging, student mentors, faculty mentors
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Supervisor name: | Donofrio, S.M. and Meijer, R.R. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Jul 2024 09:40 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Jul 2024 09:40 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4142 |
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