A longitudinal investigation of psychological sense of community on campus

In this study, a longitudinal design was utilized to examine the factors that contribute to the development of the psychological sense of community on campus (PSC). 120Students at a large university in the southeast completed two separate batteries of self- report measures, one at the beginning of the academic year (Time 1) and one at the end of the academic year (Time 2). The Time 1 measure included the NEO-PIR (Costa & McCrae, 1992) personality survey, the Campus Atmosphere Scale (Lounsbury & DeNeui, 1995) and the Quality of Life scale (Andrews & Withey, 1977). In addition to the Campus Atmosphere Scale, the Time 2 measure also included the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplau and Cutrona, 1980). The findings reveal that three variables, students' Quality of Life, Participation in campus activities and Extroversion appear to be related to PSC. Additionally, Extroversion appears to be related to students' expectations for PSC and hence the amount of change in PSC they experience over the course of an academic year. From these findings, a model for the development of PSC was developed.