Major Decisions: Implications for Engagement, Satisfaction, and Belonging

Abstract

Held at the annual Tate Conference for Academic Advising, this presentation used Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) data and investigated the relationship between students' reasons for choosing their academic majors and their academic engagement and sense of belonging. Students who tended to choose majors for intrinsic or internal extrinsic reasons tended to have higher engagement and sense of belonging, whereas students who choose majors for external extrinsic reasons tended to have less engagement and sense of belonging.