Study: Extroverted Students More Likely to Feel Sense of Belonging

A student who feels as though they belong at their institution is more likely to retain, persist and graduate, making belonging a key element in student success. Three researchers sought to understand how student personality relates to institutional belonging during the transition to college, as well as how colleges could better support different personality types.

The study, published in a peer-reviewed journal in January, found students who are extroverted and agreeable are more likely to feel as though they belong. Researchers believe this can help college leaders determine how to support students through creating a sense of belonging that accommodates personality differences.

The study: Shannon Brady from Wake Forest University, Maithreyi Gopalan from Pennsylvania State University and independent researcher Alexandria M. Stubblebine evaluated data from their survey of 4,753 students from 12 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. Institutions included large public research universities and small private liberal arts colleges.

Students completed a survey at the beginning and end of their first year of college about their personality, and additional items at the end of the year about their feelings of belonging at college.

Personality is not fixed or “typed,” Brady explains, but rather changes over time, so researchers wanted to capture how students felt or presented at different times of the year.

The results: In the analysis, students who reported they were extroverted and agreeable at the beginning of the year and the end of the year were more likely to say they felt they belonged at the end of the year.

If a student reported high neuroticism—or emotional instability such as irritability or anxiety—at the end of the year, they were less likely to say they felt as though they belonged. The inverse was true as well, a student with lower neuroticism was more likely to feel belonging.

Despite personality trends, students who identified as nonwhite (Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native, multiracial, other) were less likely to report belonging compared to their white peers. The same was true with first-generation compared to continuing generation students.

Researchers also compared size of school to students’ personalities and feelings of belonging and found extroverted students were more likely to feel as though they belonged at large (greater than 5,000 undergraduate students) institutions.

So what: Based on the results, researchers see a need for higher education practitioners to accommodate all types of personalities in belonging interventions.

New student orientation, for example, can target high-energy or large groups of students, but finding spaces for learners to connect in a quieter or more intimate setting can also be beneficial, Brady says. However, research shows that introverts acting like extroverts by engaging in more outgoing behaviors can experience a mood boost, so pushing students outside their comfort zone can also be beneficial. Faculty and staff can encourage students at the start of the term or academic year to embrace their most extroverted self to foster social connections, Brady says.

In class, faculty members can find ways for students to engage in regular small groups but also to share personal experiences related to the course material. Brady uses interteaching, or peer-led discussion groups, to have students disclose and engage with the same classmates each week, which students have said helped them build relationships.

Overall, it’s important for campus leaders to not swing too far one way, targeting only extroverted personalities or only introverted personalities, but instead understand how personality can serve as one portion of sense of belonging.

“Practitioners should keep in mind that different students—with different backgrounds but also different personalities—may find different avenues to build their sense of belonging on campus,” according to the study. “We encourage institutions to create multiple, varied pathways to belonging, and to emphasize that developing a sense of belonging often takes time.”

What’s next: In the future, Brady hopes to do additional research on how different types of institutions influence different student personalities and their feelings of belonging.

“I could imagine certain spaces where openness to new ideas might be more facilitative to belonging, perhaps an art school, that is an important aspect of being a student there,” Brady says. “I would love to do a study where we actually get to figure out, what’s the personality profile of a school? And one possibility is, the more that you are similar to the personality profile of your school, then the more that you’re likely to come to feel like you belong.”

She’s currently reviewing data from online learners and their feelings of belonging to see how they differ to those of residential campuses and, so far, conscientiousness plays a greater factor in students’ belonging for those in distance learning.

Brady theorizes this could be because an online student interacts less with peers and instead, gauges belonging on completion of courses, administrative tasks and engaging with faculty or staff members.

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