Studying Effective Factors on the Sense of Belonging to a Place in Academic Spaces of Tehran

The sense of belonging to a place is a meaningful relationship between feeling, recognition, and perception of people and space that can create positive feelings and consequences on social, psychological, and physiological factors. Therefore, this research was conducted to investigate the factors affecting the sense of belonging to academic spaces. It is applied research which is done by a descriptive method. A cross-sectional survey method has been used to collect the data. The statistical population includes all students studying in Tehran city, and a cluster sampling method was used for the selection of 170 students from five universities (Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran University, Science and Industry University, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University and Islamic Azad University- Research sciences Branch). A researcher-made questionnaire with 61 questions was used as a data gathering. The validity of the questionnaire was considered and verified by a survey of professors in the fields of architecture and psychology and its reliability using Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.941). Data analysis was performed using exploratory factor analysis and correlation coefficient. In the results of the factor analysis, in addition to the factor of belonging to the university, eight other factors were extracted which had a high correlation with the sense of belonging to a place, and totally, about 54% of the total variance of this scale was covered by these eight factors. Results showed that environmental design factors (spatial organization, site and campus, the quantity and quality of classes and the quantity and quality of furniture), human factors (the behavior of teachers and staff with students) and individual factors (participation in scientific, cultural, social activities And importance to academic assignments) had the most correlation with the sense of belonging to the university, and it is necessary to consider the design of the environment and educational programs of teachers, staff, and students.