The Effect of Social Belonging on Persistence to General Chemistry 2

Students’ social belonging in general chemistry has recently been shown to predict course performance, and their course-level social belonging has been shown to differ across demographics, such as gender. This course-level social belonging consists of two components: 1) sense-of-belonging, referring...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of chemical education 2023-11, Vol.100 (11), p.4190-4199
Main Authors: Edwards, Joshua D., Torres, Hector L., Frey, Regina F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemistry
College students
Demography
Elementary school students
Novels
Organic Chemistry
Pandemics
Persistence
Science education
Social interaction
Student attitudes
Students
Uncertainty
Women
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Summary:Students’ social belonging in general chemistry has recently been shown to predict course performance, and their course-level social belonging has been shown to differ across demographics, such as gender. This course-level social belonging consists of two components: 1) sense-of-belonging, referring to a student’s feeling of social connectedness to peers, instructors, and course environment; and 2) belonging uncertainty, referring to a student’s perception of the stability of one’s belonging or perceived ability relative to their peers in the class. In this study, we examined the belonging uncertainty as a novel factor that influences students’ persistence from General Chemistry 1 (GC1) to General Chemistry 2 (GC2). This study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic; hence, GC1 and GC2 were delivered remotely (containing synchronous and asynchronous components). Our results show evidence for 1) GC1 performance alone did not entirely explain students’ persistence to GC2 for students whose majors required GC2 (i.e., some students receiving an A and approximately half of the students with a C/C+ in GC1 did not continue to GC2), and late-semester GC1 belonging uncertainty predicts persistence for some women; 2) women reported having a higher belonging uncertainty than men at the beginning of GC2, despite there being no differences in final GC1 course grade across gender; and 3) for all students, the final GC1 course grade did not predict early semester GC2 belonging, even though the structures of the two courses were very similar. These findings add to the literature highlighting the importance of implementing inclusive practices throughout GC1 and GC2.
ISSN:0021-9584
1938-1328
DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01048