What we know about peer interaction and sense of belonging for students from culturally and linguistically diverse migrant and refugee backgrounds
Ronan Kelly, Sam Cunningham, Freya Wright-Brough and Henk Huijser, Queensland University of Technology
The issue
Having a sense of belonging at university is important for students’ academic success and socio-emotional wellbeing. The Universities Accord Panel, which commissioned a literature review on the subject, concluded that: “As the student cohort continues to diversify and more students look to study through online or hybrid models, universities need to explore innovative ways to facilitate student belonging” (p 168).
However, belonging is a complex issue with many intersecting, influencing factors. One of these is the intersection of English dominant institutions with domestic students from culturally and linguistically diverse migrant and refugee backgrounds (CALDMR), who speak languages other than English at home. The strengths of these students are often made invisible, potentially impeding their sense of belonging at university. For these students, as more recent research has found, a generalised ‘one-size-fits-all’ notion of belonging is flawed and does not sufficiently account for the personal, situated and political dimensions of diverse students’ lived experiences of belonging.
Across Australia, CALDMR students represented 18.6% of university students in 2022, but people from CALDMR backgrounds are 22.8% of the Australian population. For CALDMR students who moved to Australia in the last 10 years, their national enrolment rate in higher education has decreased from 3.8% in 2007 to 3.2% in 2022, suggesting that a whole-of-system approach is needed to ensure more equitable participation for these students.
As university educators, we questioned the role of educator and peer interactions in supporting a sense of belonging for CALDMR students who are in their first year of study. Our research analysed national Student Experience Survey 2020–2022 data to explore 788 first-year CALDMR students’ experiences of belonging at an Australian university.
What did we find?
The quantitative findings highlighted the complex nature of belonging. Compared with domestic students who use English as a first language, CALDMR students had a slightly higher sense of belonging to the institution but reported lower frequencies of interactions with peers.
The qualitative findings made it clear that CALDMR students highly valued approachable, helpful and genuineinteractions with educators. They also valued peer interactions and strongly believed that educators had a role to play in facilitating them. Contrary to common perceptions that group work is a perennial student complaint, CALDMR students were highly positive about it, with one participant even stating, “more group work would be nice”. Tables 1 and 2 show the themes related to belonging when CALDMR students commented on the bests aspects and what needs improvement in their course.
Table 1 CALDMR students’ best aspects item themes (N=93)
Table 2 CALDMR students’ needs improvement item themes (N=28)
What educators can do
Belonging is an abstract and complex concept that is often conceptualised at the institutional level, making it difficult to identify what educators can do. For CALDMR students, educator and peer interactions are key, but we can’t rely on a sense of belonging developing through spontaneous interactions. Educators can support CALDMR students’ sense of belonging by designing for frequent peer interaction in the curriculum. This can include planning for multiple opportunities throughout tutorials, online LMS interactions and assessment tasks.
Conclusion
CALDMR students’ sense of belonging at university is multifaceted. Peer interaction is a key component and can be supported by educators. By designing for peer interaction in the curriculum, educators and universities can better support CALDMR students’ sense of belonging.
Ronan Kelly, School of Teacher Education & Leadership, QUT
Sam Cunningham, School of Electrical Engineering & Robotics, QUT
Freya Wright-Brough, Learning and Teaching Unit, Student Success & Teaching Advancement, QUT
Henk Huijser, Learning and Teaching Unit, Student Success & Teaching Advancement, QUT