Graduate Student Research Symposium 2025

This qualitative case study seeks to understand the perceptions of historically underserved and underrepresented undergraduate students on their social integration, sense of belonging, and intent to persist after participating in an intentionally designed online community. Earlier research suggests that the persistence of historically underserved and underrepresented students in higher education presents unique engagement challenges compared to that of more advantaged peers, calling for more concerted efforts to alleviate them. Specifically, when students have opportunities to become socially and academically integrated into the university, they develop a sense of belonging, which contributes positively to institutional commitment and therefore persistence to graduation. Recent studies have found that, especially during and after social isolation caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, online communities of all kinds in higher education have been identified as crucial opportunities for maintaining educational motivation and engagement. This research is a work in progress and will describe its preliminary stages.