Closeness and belongingness: boosting student engagement in Jakarta universities
Abstract views: 213
,
PDF downloads: 70
Abstract
Aside from academic activities, university life is enriched by extracurricular or community events that foster organisational skills and competency development. According to previous studies, university students who are motivated to grow personally are those who have aspirations for their future careers. Another factor that encourages active participation in organisational activities is a sense of belonging. Students’ active participation will contribute positively to organisational development. This study uses the lens of weak ties theory, which contrasts with the notion that people with strong relationships are more inclined to provide benefits in certain contexts. This study will use network analytic techniques to determine the extent of relationships between university students through UCINET software. The study aims to identify whether weak interpersonal interactions among students can promote their community engagement. The relationship analysis will relate to the level of their sense of belonging, obtained from questionnaire responses. The data were processed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis through SPSS. The results demonstrate that weak relationships and a sense of belonging positively impact member engagement in organisation. This study aims to contribute by offering a hitherto limited analysis of student organisations using the weak ties theory and network analysis method.
References
Bakshy, E., Rosenn, I., Marlow, C., & Adamic, L. (2012). The role of social networks in information diffusion. WWW’12 - Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference on World Wide Web, May 2014, 519–528. https://doi.org/10.1145/2187836.2187907
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Approaches. SAGE Publications.
de Zúñiga, H. G., & Valenzuela, S. (2011). The mediating path to a stronger citizenship: Online and offline networks, weak ties, and civic engagement. Communication Research, 38(3), 397–421. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650210384984
Drezner, N. D., & Pizmony-Levy, O. (2021). I Belong, Therefore, I Give? The Impact of Sense of Belonging on Graduate Student Alumni Engagement. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 50(4), 753–777. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764020977687
Eriyanto. (2014). Analisis Jaringan Komunikasi. Prenada Media Group.
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School Engagement : Potential of the Concept , State of the Evidence. 74(1), 59–109.
Fulmore, J. A., Olson, J., & Maellaro, R. (2023). Aligning Leadership Education: Linking Interpersonal Skills Development to Business Needs. Journal of Management Education, 47(3), 263–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/10525629221133369
Gee, L. K., Jones, J. J., Fariss, C. J., Burke, M., & Fowler, J. H. (2017). The paradox of weak ties in 55 countries. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation, 133, 362–372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2016.12.004
Gillen-O’Neel, C. (2021). Sense of Belonging and Student Engagement: A Daily Study of First- and Continuing-Generation University Students. Research in Higher Education, 62(1), 45–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-019-09570-y
Granovetter. (1983). The Strength of Weak Ties : A Network Theory Revisited Author ( s ): Mark Granovetter Published by : Wiley Stable URL : http://www.jstor.org/stable/202051 THE STRENGTH OF WEAK TIES : A NETWORK THEORY REVISITED. The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Thepry Revisited, 1(1983), 201–233.
Granovetter, M. (1976). Network Sampling: Some First Steps. American Journal of Sociology, 81(6), 1287–1303. https://doi.org/10.1086/226224
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, The University of Chicago Press Stable, 1360–1380.
Gu, S., Peng, W., Du, F., Fang, X., Guan, Z., He, X., & Jiang, X. (2023). Association between coach-athlete relationship and athlete engagement in Chinese team sports: The mediating effect of thriving. PloS One, 18(8), e0289979. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289979
Hurtado, S., & Carter, D. F. (1997). Effects of university transition and perceptions of the campus racial climate on latino university students’ sense of belonging. Sociology of Education, 70(4), 324–345. https://doi.org/10.2307/2673270
John, E. (2022). The Impact of Organisational Culture and Perceived Organisational Support on Employee Engagement. IUP Journal of Management Research.
Kaliannan, M., & Adjovu, S. N. (2015). Effective Employee Engagement and Organisational Success: A Case Study. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 161–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.350
Kong, F., & su, X. (2019). The Weakness of Strong (and Weak) Ties: Obtaining a Government Job. International Journal of Public Administration, 43, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2019.1659816
Krämer, N. C., Sauer, V., & Ellison, N. (2021). The Strength of Weak Ties Revisited: Further Evidence of the Role of Strong Ties in the Provision of Online Social Support. Social Media + Society, 7(2), 205630512110249. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211024958
Kumendong, A., & Panjaitan, A. (2021). Identification of Z-Gen Student Motivation in the Involvement Within Student Activities in Campus–a Case Study. Journal of Industrial Engineering & Management Research, 2(6), 192–201.
Laursen, B., Noack, P., Wilder, D., & Williams, V. (2000). Adolescent perceptions of reciprocity, authority, and closeness in relationships with mothers, fathers, and friends. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 24(4), 464–471. https://doi.org/10.1080/016502500750038017
Lee, J. K., & Kronrod, A. (2020). The Strength of Weak-Tie Consensus Language. Journal of Marketing Research, 57(2), 353–374. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022243720904957
Lukman, M. Z. (2022). Analysis of Student Participation in University Organisation Using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling. Journal of Social Science, 3(4), 697–713. https://doi.org/10.46799/jss.v3i4.372
Miller, K. (2015). Organisational Communication: Approaches and Processes Seventh Edition. Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication, 153–182.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster.
Rozzell, B., Piercy, C. W., Carr, C. T., King, S., Lane, B. L., Tornes, M., Johnson, A. J., & Wright, K. B. (2014). Notification pending: Online social support from close and nonclose relational ties via Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 38, 272–280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.006
Shin, H. (2020). Who Are Popular, Liked, and Admired? Longitudinal Associations between Three Social Status and Academic-Social Behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49(9), 1783–1792. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01222-0
Shin, H. (2022). Social contagion of academic behavior: Comparing social networks of close friends and admired peers. PLoS ONE, 17(3 March), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265385
Smith, L. J., & Chenoweth, J. D. (2015). The Contributions Of Student Organisation Involvement To Students Self-Assessments Of Their Leadership Traits And Relational Behaviors. American Journal of Business Education (AJBE), 8(4), 279–288. https://doi.org/10.19030/ajbe.v8i4.9422
Steele, C. M. (2010). whistling vivaldi : how stereotypes affect us and what we can do. W.W. Norton & Company.
Trolian, T. L. (2019). Predicting student involvement in the first year of university: The influence of students’ preuniversity professional and career attitudes. Journal of University Student Development, 60(1), 120–127. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2019.0009
Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2023). Developing Management Skills - Global Edition. In Pearson, New Jersey.10th Sep, 2015: Vol. 9th Ed (Issue ISBN-139781292097480).
Wu, Y., Fang, M., Wu, J., Chen, Y., & Li, H. (2022). Shyness and School Engagement in Chinese Suburban Preschoolers: A Moderated Mediation Model of Teacher–Child Closeness and Child Gender. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(7). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074270
Yang, C. L., Yamashita, N., Kuzuoka, H., Wang, H., & Foong, E. (2022). Distance Matters to Weak Ties: Exploring How Workers Perceive Their Strongly- and Weakly-Connected Collaborators in Remote Workplaces. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3492863
Yeager, D., Walton, G., & Cohen, G. L. (2013). Addressing achievement gaps with psychological interventions. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(5), 62–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171309400514
Zahriyah, A., Suprianik, Parmono, A., & Mustofa. (2021). Ekonometrika Teknik Dan Aplikasi Dengan SPSS. In Mandala Press.
Zhang, X., & Sun, J. (2011). The reciprocal relations between teachers’ perceptions of children’s behavior problems and teacher-child relationships in the first preschool year. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 172(2), 176–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2010.528077
Zhang, Y., Qiu, C., & Zhang, J. (2022). A Research Based on Online Medical Platform: The Influence of Strong and Weak Ties Information on Patients’ Consultation Behavior. Healthcare (Switzerland), 10(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10060977
Copyright (c) 2024 Jurnal Studi Komunikasi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Jurnal Studi Komunikasi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors agree to the terms of this Copyright Notice, which will apply to this submission if and when it is published by this journal (comments to the editor can be added below).
