The purpose of this study was to come to an understanding of the meaning and
experience of community for undergraduate students at a research-intensive university.
It was assumed that exploring community bounded by disciplinary affiliation would be a
valuable approach to understanding this phenomenon within the context of the researchintensive
university. In-depth interviews were conducted with 23 third year Psychology
students pursuing either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree, and a
survey designed to explore key aspects of interviewees' experiences was administered
to a larger cohort of such students. Students' experiences were examined through the
lens of constitutive and individualistic community frameworks, and ideal and actual
experiences were compared. The results of this study show that a focus on disciplinary
affiliation was a useful approach to understanding the meaning of community. Results
document the significant influences of disciplinary affiliation on community
membership and belonging. This exploration revealed that issues of community
membership, involvement, and belonging were longitudinal processes that entailed
complex patterns of participation and modes of exclusion that were influenced by
students' aspirations and obligations as well as structural characteristics of the
Psychology department and of the research-intensive university.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11153 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Hawkey, Colleen |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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