Strengthening student resilience and supporting their sense of belonging

Hello NIRSA family! Thanks to everyone who reached out after my introductory post from May.

It was delightful to hear from folks who are excited to read about research each month—you may be my people! Let’s see if we can get more folks to join the team.

This month, I’m sharing The Effects of Participation in Recreational Activities on Students’ Resilience and Sense of Belonging, by Krista Soria, Brayden Boettcher, and Katherine Hallahan.

Soria, K. M., Boettcher, B., & Hallahan, K. (2022). The Effects of Participation in Recreational Activities on Students’ Resilience and Sense of Belonging. Recreational Sports Journal, 46(2), 184-192. https://doi.org/10.1177/15588661221125201

Published in the Recreational Sports Journal in 2022, their study found positive and significant effects of participation in group fitness classes, intramural sports, open recreation, outdoor trips, and sport clubs on the resilience and sense of belonging of undergraduates, as compared to students who did not participate in those activities.

I recently had a chance to talk to Dr. Krista Soria, one of the article’s coauthors. She is awesome and continues to pursue additional research questions that I think our field would find valuable. Consider following her to get updates about new research as it is published.*

Opportunities to put this research into practice

• Whenever we talk to students, families, or administrators on our campuses, we have a great opportunity to highlight these research findings. As collegiate recreation professionals, we have probably witnessed times when these activities had these identified impacts. However, now you are equipped with the academic research to cite as we discuss the impact of participation in recreation on the students we serve.
• We can examine the affordability and accessibility of the activities we offer so that more students might benefit from the positive outcomes noted in this study. If we cannot remove a direct cost from a program entirely (e.g. group fitness), can we offer a few classes each week for free? Or can we introduce scholarships or access funds for students who need assistance overcoming financial barriers?
• During our conversation, Dr. Soria spoke about the importance of our students building resilience and how our programs and events can help students do that through the setting of smart goals and then achieving them. During welcome week, can we implement a challenge to our first-year and transfer students to visit the recreation center 10 times in the first month of the term and offer an incentive to those who succeed? Perhaps there is a way to partner with student orientation and transition programs to collaborate on this effort?
• Soria also talked about the importance of disaggregating demographic data. If you have collected data on the sense of belonging of your school’s campus recreation participants, ensure your analysis examines not only the statistics for all students, but also the statistics by demographic group. You may learn of gaps in how a student’s sense of belonging is experienced when individuals identities align with marginalized groups.

In my next article, I plan to share a few tips on how to engage with the Recreational Sports Journal (RSJ) through the SAGE Journals platform, as well as how to engage with individual research articles. Please reach out if you have any questions or ideas about putting current research into practice; also, feel free to reach out if you just want to have a nerdy conversation with someone—if so, I’m your gal.

* There are a few ways to “follow” a researcher, I use Google Scholar to set alerts for certain researchers who publish on topics that interest me.

Campus Confidential

Want to hear more about belonging for employees in higher education? Director of Staff Experience and Culture at the University of Maryland, Earl Cabellon and I recently connected with the Campus Confidential Podcast to discuss why belonging is essential to employee productivity, satisfaction, and retention; what needs to be unlearned to be relearned; and what supervisors can do to create it. Check it out!