Impact of Campfire and Fountain Lounge on Belonging and Connectedness

UBC Undergraduate Research

Impact of Campfire and Fountain Lounge on Belonging and Connectedness Wu, Yixuan; Chen, JoJo; Xin, Yutong; Guo, Alime; Cui, Katrina; Qi, Qi

Abstract

This research investigates the effect of outdoor lounges with campfires and fountains on university campuses on students' belonging and social connection. We hypothesized that the outdoor lounge with a fire pit and water feature would increase students’ belonging and social connection compared with a lounge without any special feature. Through a between-subjects experimental design, we randomly assigned 159 university students to one of three conditions, where they were shown an image of an outdoor lounge and asked to complete a standardized survey measuring belonging and social connection. The results showed that the three conditions have similar scores on both PSSM and SCS scales. Therefore, no significant difference has been shown in students' levels of belonging and social connection among the three conditions. Our hypothesis was not supported. Despite limitations such as small sample size and the use of images rather than in-person experience, our findings suggest that the type of outdoor lounge on a university campus may not significantly impact students' sense of belonging and social connection. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Item Metadata

Title	Impact of Campfire and Fountain Lounge on Belonging and Connectedness
Creator	Wu, Yixuan; Chen, JoJo; Xin, Yutong; Guo, Alime; Cui, Katrina; Qi, Qi
Contributor	University of British Columbia. Student Services; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning
Date Issued	2023-04-16
Description	This research investigates the effect of outdoor lounges with campfires and fountains on university campuses on students' belonging and social connection. We hypothesized that the outdoor lounge with a fire pit and water feature would increase students’ belonging and social connection compared with a lounge without any special feature. Through a between-subjects experimental design, we randomly assigned 159 university students to one of three conditions, where they were shown an image of an outdoor lounge and asked to complete a standardized survey measuring belonging and social connection. The results showed that the three conditions have similar scores on both PSSM and SCS scales. Therefore, no significant difference has been shown in students' levels of belonging and social connection among the three conditions. Our hypothesis was not supported. Despite limitations such as small sample size and the use of images rather than in-person experience, our findings suggest that the type of outdoor lounge on a university campus may not significantly impact students' sense of belonging and social connection. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”
Subject	Wellbeing
Genre	Report
Type	Text
Language	eng
Series	UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report; University of British Columbia. PSYC 421
Date Available	2023-09-07
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI	10.14288/1.0435824
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85860
Affiliation	Arts, Faculty of; Psychology, Department of
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Undergraduate
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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