Belongingness, social connectedness, and life satisfaction in college students after COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

University students' sense of belonging has been greatly underrated since the pandemic, despite the fact that school belonging has been studied for many years. Due to school closings during the pandemic, college students lost the majority of their social connections at their university, and they have trouble rebuilding their social networks after the pandemic. In the present study, the mediating role of social connectedness in the relationship between life satisfaction and university sense of belonging was investigated. The University Belonging Questionnaire was consequently initially translated into Turkish. The study sample included 456 college students from a public university in Turkey, with 75% of them being female. Findings demonstrated the validity and reliability of the University Belonging Questionnaire as a tool for Turkish culture. The findings showed that life satisfaction was significantly predicted by a sense of belonging. The findings also indicated that social connectedness has an indirect but significant influence on the link between a sense of belonging and life satisfaction. Implications for future studies and practice are discussed.