Quantifying Belonging and Mattering: The Experience of Allied Health Undergraduate Students in University and on Clinical Placement

Zawada, Clair (2025) Quantifying Belonging and Mattering: The Experience of Allied Health Undergraduate Students in University and on Clinical Placement. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Abstract

Student belonging is well-researched, with links identified between a sense of belonging in students, and student experience, satisfaction, and student persistence. Mattering is a lesser researched area and is the individual student’s perception that they are noticed and valued. This research aims to determine levels of belonging and mattering across the academic and the clinical environment in undergraduate allied health professional students. This research explores how these levels of belonging and mattering vary across student demographics and correlate with grade outcome.

A non-experimental, correlational, quantitative study was undertaken, using a cross-sectional survey and student academic records. Quantitative questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students enrolled on allied health programmes at one UK university. The questionnaires included questions relating to student demographics and utilised four previously validated Likert scales measuring feelings of mattering in the university environment (Elliott et al., 2004); feelings of mattering in the clinical placement environment (Elliott et al., 2004); feelings of belonging in the university environment (Yorke, 2016) and feelings of belonging in the clinical placement environment using the Belongingness Scale –Clinical Placement Experience (BS-CPE) (Levett-Jones et al., 2009a). Participants were also asked for their student identification number to obtain their academic attainment for the year.

264 completed questionnaires were analysed, with 256 participants providing access to their academic records. Analysis showed a positive correlation between belonging and mattering in both the university and clinical placement environments. Students who had seriously considered dropping out had significantly lower scores for all four scales, and there was a statistically significant relationship between the ethnicity of the student and feelings of mattering and belonging in the clinical environment. There was a small but statistically significant correlation between the student’s perception of mattering at university and their average grade achieved for the year. The Spearman correlation coefficient = 0.141, p<0.025. This was the only scale that had a statistically significant relationship with grade outcome.

This research demonstrates a relationship between feelings of student mattering and grade outcome, and feelings of belonging and mattering may impact on the student’s intention to persist. For students attending clinical placement as part of their studies, attention needs to be given to supporting students to feel that they belong in the clinical placement environment and that they matter to clinical staff and their peers during placements. Interventions at an individual level to increase a student’s sense of mattering may positively impact their academic grades.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:	Date Event 22 May 2025 Accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Belonging, Mattering, Placements, Students, Allied Health, Attainment
Subjects:	CAH02 - subjects allied to medicine > CAH02-06 - allied health > CAH02-06-01 - health sciences (non-specific) CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-04 - psychology and health CAH15 - social sciences > CAH15-04 - health and social care > CAH15-04-03 - health studies CAH22 - education and teaching > CAH22-01 - education and teaching > CAH22-01-01 - education
Divisions:	Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences > College of Education and Social Work
Depositing User:	Louise Muldowney
Date Deposited:	22 May 2025 16:48
Last Modified:	05 Jun 2025 14:29
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16394

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