The Role of Relatedness in Student Learning Experiences

Failure in addressing students’ needs in the context of student learning experiences may lead to negative impact on the image of higher education. Framed in self-determination theory, this study examined students’ relatedness on most satisfying experiences in their respective universities. Participants’ (N=1974) responses to open-ended questions were inductively coded to understand relatedness principles of student learning experiences to emerge from the data. The findings revealed that students valued the role of lecturers in professional and personal contexts, peers for friendship and teamwork and academic and non-academic experiences resulted from projects and activities. Given this, to provide a positive learning environment for students, university management needs to address and support lecturers’ well-being, pay attention to student relations on campus and support academic and non-academic activities. By understanding the roles of connecting students to lecturers, students to students and students to administrative staff, we could build a dynamic and functional campus environment for each party to live and care about each other. Keywords: Learning environment, Learning experience, Relatedness, Student engagement