BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1677348
This article is part of the Research TopicIntercultural Communication and International StudentsView all 22 articles
Social Interaction, Sense of Belonging, and Psychological Well-being: A Study of Chinese International Students in UK Higher Education
Provisionally accepted
- 1University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 2Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom
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Going to university is a time of great change and adjustment for students, particularly for Chinese international students (CIS) who are crossing borders and cultures to pursue their studies. The existing literature has shown that CIS social interaction is associated with their sense of belonging at university which, in turn, is associated with their psychological well-being. However, there remains a paucity of work examining these relationships within a single study, especially among CIS in the United Kingdom (UK), where social interaction, sense of belonging, and psychological well-being, are reported to be of concern. In the present study, 85 CIS at UK universities, were surveyed for their social interaction (peer and teacher-student relationships) and sense of belonging at university as well as their psychological well-being. It was found that students’ social interactions and sense of belonging at university were significantly positively related with psychological well-being. Moreover, mediation analyses revealed that sense of belonging at university partially mediated the relationship between peer interactions and psychological well-being but fully mediated the relationship between teacher-student interactions and psychological well-being. Despite some limitations (e.g., sampling and methodological issues), this study makes a valuable contribution to understanding how different forms of social interactions (e.g., peer and teacher-student) affect CIS students’ sense of belonging and, in turn, their psychological well-being. It also contributes practically, suggesting that initiatives such as expanded extracurricular opportunities and university peer mentoring programs may foster positive social interactions. These, in turn, may enhance students’ sense of belonging at university and their psychological well-being.
Keywords: Chinese international students, higher education, social interaction, Belonging, psychological well-being, University
Received: 31 Jul 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Abbott, Waldeck and Holliman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Andrew Holliman, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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