Socialization in Higher Education: When Experiencing Shared Realities Can Benefit Students

Abstract

When postgraduate students join their program, they establish commonalities of inner states (feelings, beliefs, concerns) with members of different, intertwined groups. Are those commonalities perceived as distinct based on group type? If so, which type affects students the most? We address these questions leveraging the shared reality construct: the perceived commonality of inner states with others. In two empirical, longitudinal studies, we survey graduate students as they establish shared realities with small teams, their class cohort (cluster), and the broader school community. We show that each shared reality with different groups is perceived distinctively, and the one shared with cohort members has the strongest relationship with students’ engagement with the program. We explore a shared reality antecedent and discuss interventions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This effect was found to be consistent across four separate samples, supporting the robustness of this finding.

2 For full transparency we want to highlight that prior to this study, the SRSC was included for initial validation in one study of a separate research project whose manuscript is currently in preparation. 299 participants (Mechanical Turk population) took part to a survey investigating shared reality and social influence and we added the five items as exploratory items to be able to run an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The EFA revealed a one-factor solution consistent with our theoretical understanding of shared reality in close social circles. The factor loadings for the items in the scale ranged from 0.60 to 0.84, indicating good construct validity. In addition, the scale demonstrated high reliability with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.85.