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The Examination of the Relationships Between Belonging to School and the Need Satisfaction
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
219 participants. Before the data analyses, the responses of the participants to data
collection tools were revised. Two psychiatrically diagnosed students were excluded
from the sample. All in all, the analyses have been carried out with the data obtained
from 217 participants- 112 female (51.6%) and 105 male (48.4%) high school students
who received education at tenth and eleventh grades. While the average age of female
students is 15.31 and Standard deviation is 0.043, the average age of male students
is 16.40 and Standard deviation is 0.058. In the present study, the Sense of Belonging
to School and the Basic Need Satisfaction Scales have been used. Multiple regression
analysis has been used for the analyses of the data.
Findings
According to the findings of the study, the needs of autonomy, belonging and compe-
tence have explained the sense of belonging to school significantly (R=.54, R2=.29,
F= 29.37, p<.01). When the relationship of variables with the sense of belonging to
school are examined individually, it is concluded that satisfying of the needs has ex-
plained the belonging to school positively and significantly. According to these results,
the relevant variables explain 29% of the variance related to the belonging to school.
Discussion and Result
The present study has been done to examine the relationships between the high school
students’ belonging to school and satisfying their psychological needs. The findings
of the study show that satisfying the psychological needs of high school students in-
creases their belonging to school. The studies reveal that the students’ attendance to
school and their academic achievement increase on condition that both their teachers
and peers satisfy the students’ psychological needs (Pittman & Richmond, 2007). In
the literature, it is seen that there are not any studies which examine the relationships
between belonging to school and satisfying the psychological needs. Furthermore, in
the studies on the belonging to school, the relationships mostly between the result
variables (academic achievement, school dropout, etc.) and the belonging to school
are examined (Faircloth and Hamm, 2005; Furrer and Skinner, 2003; Nichols, 2008;
Ma, 2010; Osterman, 2002). Herein, the present study can be claimed to have made a
contribution to the literature since both it has revealed the relationships between two
variables and it examines the relationships between the belonging to school, as the
process variable, and the need satisfaction.
The individuals who take part in the present study live the puberty. A strong sense of
belonging has great importance during the puberty (Booker, 2004). In modern societ-
ies, schools play a very important role to shape the nature of teenagers. If students
become integrated with schools, they are faced with problems in many aspects such
