Multidimensional student inclusion

Supervisor: Dr Nadia Jessop

A) Rationale for the project

Social inclusion is particularly important for first-year international university students, who might be experiencing cultural mismatch at UK universities. A major developmental task of adolescence, including emerging adulthood, is the learning of sociocultural scripts within a particular context, in preparation for a successful transition to adulthood. However, cultural mismatch can occur when the social scripts for one cultural context do not translate into a new cultural context. Because first-year international university students find themselves in new physical settings within a new culture, while adapting to a new independence, inclusion cannot be examined within one dimension. According to sociocultural and social learning theories in educational psychology, the key to improving students' academic and psychosocial adjustment goes beyond addressing individual factors to include intervening upon multiple features of the learning environment.

Multidimensional social inclusion across relational, functional, and physical dimensions, is therefore particularly important for first-year international college students. Although most people think of social inclusion in relational and functional terms, the physical dimension of social inclusion is an important consideration as well. Relational inclusion emphasises belonging, functional inclusion emphasises equity and empowerment, while physical inclusion emphasises environmental factors that by intentional design foster inclusive and equitable interactions. Prior reviews of social inclusion measures revealed that the few social inclusion measures that come close to including all three dimensions were designed as qualitative measures for use in clinical settings. Therefore, there is a need for a reliable and valid quantitative psychometric measure of multidimensional social inclusion for application to educational settings.

B) References that should be read

Bailey, R. (2007). Youth sport and social inclusion. In Positive youth development through sport (pp. 99-110). Routledge.

Blakemore, S. J., & Mills, K. L. (2014). Is adolescence a sensitive period for sociocultural processing?. Annual review of psychology, 65, 187-207.

Coombs, T., Nicholas, A., & Pirkis, J. (2013). A review of social inclusion measures. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 47(10), 906–919. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004867413491161

Gidley, J., Hampson, G., Wheeler, L., & Bereded-Samuel, E. (2010). Social inclusion: Context, theory and practice. The Australasian journal of university-community engagement, 5(1), 6-36.

Phillips, L. T., Stephens, N. M., Townsend, S. S., & Goudeau, S. (2016). Access is not enough: Cultural mismatch persists to limit first-generation students’ opportunities for achievement throughout college. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Rogers-Sirin, L., Ryce, P., & Sirin, S. R. (2014). Acculturation, acculturative stress, and cultural mismatch and their influences on immigrant children and adolescents’ well-being. In Global perspectives on well-being in immigrant families (pp. 11-30). Springer, New York, NY.

Stephens, N. M., & Townsend, S. S. (2015). The norms that drive behavior: Implications for cultural mismatch theory. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46(10), 1304-1306.

Trawalter, S., Hoffman, K., & Palmer, L. (2021). Out of place: Socioeconomic status, use of public space, and belonging in higher education. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(1), 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000248

C) Research aims and questions

The main aim of this research is to develop an empirically validated psychometric scale measuring multidimensional student inclusion for use with university samples (particularly international students). The measure will then be used across various studies to answer the research questions such as:

What are the implications of multidimensional student inclusion for international students’ academic and psychosocial adjustment?
To what extent is multidimensional student inclusion correlated with international students’ cultural identity, acculturative stress and experiences of cultural mismatch?
How can the study of multidimensional student inclusion inform the intentional design of learning environments that can better communicate messages of inclusion?

D) Methods

Methods will be determined by students based on the specific research question being addressed. Typically, students will either collect new data and apply advanced statistical methods suitable to scale development such as factor analysis (EFA/CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) or use secondary data. Experience with experimental methods in social psychology will be an asset. Additionally, the use of mixed methods approaches, especially innovative qualitative approaches such as participatory research methods, is also applicable.