The Effect of Sense of School Belonging on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review

Year 2024, Volume: 11 Issue: 4, 673 - 687

Fatma Uslu Gülşen

https://doi.org/10.30900/kafkasegt.1359812

Abstract

The concept of a sense of school belonging has gained increasing attention in the educational community due to its numerous developmental and educational advantages. Nevertheless, research on a sense of school belonging has been scattered and has missed certain clarity for the terminology ambiguity. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a meta-analysis to eliminate the ambiguity regarding the terminology of ‘a sense of school belonging’ and to determine the relationship between a sense of school belonging and academic achievement. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of a sense of school belonging on academic achievement and to explore the factors that may moderate this relationship. The publication year and the measurement tool are determined as moderator variables for this study. A pool of 6,891 studies was created, including titles containing the terms ‘a sense of school belonging’ and ‘academic achievement’. Twenty-two studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected for the analysis. The findings indicate a statistically significant, albeit small, effect of a sense of school belonging on academic achievement. Notably, the effect of a sense of school belonging varied across publication years and the effect size gradually decreased over time. Furthermore, the analysis found no statistically significant differences among the measurement tools. This finding suggests that the effect of a sense of school belonging on academic achievement remains consistent across different measurement tools. This is significant as it implies researchers can use various measurement tools to study this relationship without worrying about bias or unreliability.

Keywords

Academic achievement, a sense of school belonging, meta-analysis.

Ethical Statement

Ethics committee approval is not required as the research data is based on the literature.

Supporting Institution

No

Thanks

.

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