Belongingness and Loneliness in Higher Education: A Meta-Analysis of Pre-and Post-Pandemic Trends

Gulsah Dost^*

• Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom

This meta-analysis seeks to explore how the complex relationship between loneliness and belongingness in higher education students can be explained by a set of pre-and post-COVID-19 pandemic dynamics. Based on 56 studies including 30,062 individuals, the review explores direct relations and moderation through age, education, and country. Results indicate a moderate-to-strong negative relationship between loneliness and belongingness (r = -0.48, 95% CI [-0.529, -0.422]), such that a consistent association was found across situations such that increases in one's level of loneliness is associated with decreases in one's level of belongingness. Nevertheless, there was no small-degree of inter-study heterogeneity (Q = 1058.86, p < 0.0001, I² = 94.33%), which is a potential reason for the differences in the study populations and methods, employing a random-effects model to account for these discrepancies. After further scrutiny of the results, location, and year of study, and country did not moderate the effect size, which in turn reflects the stability of the association across context and time. In the subgroup analysis the effect size of the relationship between the level of the Information Technology (IT) usage and the externalisation was lower in the time of the pandemic than in the time preceding the pandemic. The effect size of the pre-pandemic group is -0.515 (95% CI: -0.589 to -0.441, p < 0.001) and the effect size of pandemic group is slightly smaller with -0.427 (95% CI: -0.502 to -0.352, p < 0.001). This means that although the level of loneliness have normalised, there have been a subtonic influence on perceived belonging of the novelty stressor caused by breakdowns in social connection from pandemic-level influences. In addition, no significant publication bias was observed. Overall, these findings confirm the strong negative association between loneliness and sense of belonging and emphasise the important role in providing community support for students, especially during social disruptions.