The graduate attributes and skills that we try to foster in our biomedical science and physiology-based programmes provide a set of skills, behaviours and values that we hope students will develop by connecting with the culture, curriculum and community of the university at which they study. The development of these attributes will rely to some extent on them feeling like they belong to a community and having a strong sense of belonging.

We will present and discuss the findings from student surveys on transition and sense of belonging that we have carried out for several years at the University of Birmingham. Data from our Biomedical Science students indicates that their sense of belonging increased as students progressed through the programme. This sense of belonging became less dependent on staff-student engagement as students progressed through their studies and alternative support structures such as having meaningful and strong networks became more important.

In year 1 students there was a high correlation between having a strong sense of belonging and having 1 or 2 close friends, students engaging with extra-curricular activities and having at least one staff member knowing their name. Students indicated that merely mixing students in large group meetings was not sufficient to develop a sense of belonging, but the opportunity to connect with like-minded students as a result of those meetings or through extracurricular engagement was reported to be more effective.  This indicates the importance of meaningful interactions between students. If these opportunities are to be programme-based then staff need to engage with students through co-creation of activities.

First year students transitioning into the university showed a high level of interest in engaging with extracurricular activities. However, their active involvement did not match this desire to engage. Focus group discussions indicated the greatest barrier to engagement with extracurricular activities was student perception that they did not have enough time given the expectations and requirements of an academically challenging programme. There are, however, likely to be other contributing factors such as cost and part-time working. These results may link in some way to awarding and employability gaps.

We will facilitate an open discussion inviting ideas and examples of best practice on how to address the following questions:

How can we increase opportunities and communicate the importance of extracurricular activities for the development of graduate attributes in students?

How can we provide more opportunities for students to increase their networks and sense of community through meaningful activities?

Our data indicated that a high sense of belonging correlated well with students feeling more motivated to study, being more likely to form study groups, and being more likely to prepare for and participate in teaching sessions. This supports the literature which indicates an association between of a sense of belonging and academic success, motivation, and self-belief (Freeman, Anderman and Jensen, 2007).