Could watching a seven-minute video increase students’ sense of belonging in school, attendance, and academic performance? Remarkably, the answer appears to be yes.
Researchers from the University of Virginia randomly selected 9th grade students to experience a “social belonging intervention”—namely, watching a video during summer orientation of juniors and seniors at their school sharing how their initial anxieties of not belonging in school faded over time (Williams, Hirschi, & Sublett, 2020). A control group watched a TED talk on the permanence of social media.
Older students’ testimonials about their struggles were simple and genuine. They shared, for example, that they initially didn’t know who to “hang out with,” which caused some to fall into depression. Yet over time, their anxieties began to fade, prompting some blunt advice, such as “You just gotta get used to it” and “It’s not that hard after a while.” The research team curated these unvarnished messages to help incoming high schoolers recognize that their own anxieties about fitting in were both normative (widely shared) and transient (temporary).
After watching the video, students engaged in “saying-is-believing” exercises, drawing from the video and personal experiences to write messages to future 9th graders, reassuring them they, too, would find their place in school.
Although the intervention was designed for and delivered to all students, subgroup analysis revealed that Black and Hispanic students experienced particularly notable gains, with significantly fewer average unexcused absences than the control group (4 percent vs. 8 percent) and fewer disciplinary referrals (0.38 vs. 2.73) at the end of their 9th grade year. They also failed fewer classes (2 percent vs. 15 percent) and had better grade point averages (GPAs) at the end of the school year (3.45 vs. 2.85). As a result, the intervention appeared to erase achievement gaps in students failing their classes and close 86 percent of the gap in GPAs.
How did such a brief intervention have such powerful effects for the rest of the school year? One possibility is that it may have assured students who had heightened anxieties about the transition to high school due to “stereotype threat,” a well-documented phenomenon in which students worry their performance may confirm negative stereotypes about them. This belief can erode their working memory and spawn a cycle of lower performance. By providing students with an “alternate lens” for viewing their experiences, the intervention may have helped students to break this cycle by equipping them with positive self-talk that encouraged them to engage in school, build social connections, and ultimately, achieve better outcomes.
As one student wrote, “After watching that video, I realized that being afraid and worried is normal because I always thought that I was the only one that wasn’t going to have friends. But that’s not how my freshman year is going to turn out . . . this video gives me hope.”
