Homesickness, Social Belonging, & Retention in First-Year Students

Abstract

Astudy was performed toexamine the relationship between homesickness, retention and social belonging in college students. Colleges and universities place a large focus on increasing their retention rates. One threat to retention is homesickness, which has an adverse impact on students’ academic success.Social belonging (i.e. the need to belong to a social group) has been proposed as an explanation and cause of homesickness(Sun, Hagedorn, & Zhang, 2016; Watt & Badger, 2012). By determining the relationship between homesickness, social belonging, and retention, interventions could be created to better a student’s college experience and thereby increase retention. Archival data was used from the University of Wisconsin, Stout’s Fall 2016 Mapworks Transition Survey. The sample consisted of 1218 first-year students. A Pearson’s bivariate correlation indicated there existed a significant relationship between distressed homesickness and social integration. A logistical regression provided no evidence that a significant relationship existed between distressed homesickness and retention, or that social integration moderated this relationship. Recommendations are given for further research to better explore these variables, as well as examining other constructsthat couldimpact these relationships.