Examining Latine belonging, motivation, and student organization involvement in higher education

As Latine undergraduate enrollment rates rise within the United States, retention continues to be a key issue affecting the academic achievement of these students. A key mechanism for ensuring student retention has to do with the academic and social experiences of students, which foster institutional commitment, sense of belonging, and academic persistence. In this report, I review the literature on the examination of factors affecting Latine student success, retention, and sense of belonging across a variety of domains. Involvement in student organizations is emphasized as a potential context and experience that facilitates sense of belonging and motivation for academic persistence. Relying on Tinto’s Student Integration Model (Tinto, 1975) and Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), I propose a phenomenological study to explore how student organization involvement impacts sense of belonging and motivation to persist academically for Latine students at a large, Hispanic-Serving Institution in the southwest United States.