Belonging-related experiences, satisfaction, and willingness to recommend among Chinese students and graduates of UK master’s programmes

Satisfaction and willingness to recommend are related evaluations of university experience, but their associations with belonging-related experiences may differ. We examined cross-sectional questionnaire responses from 198 Chinese students and graduates of UK master's programmes, including 150 graduates (75.8%), comparing seven support-related content scores with a three-item satisfaction score and a single recommendation item. Relative to the mean of the remaining support items, the six-item belonging-related score had a positive conditional association with recommendation and little additional association with satisfaction; a paired comparison of the two increments was positive, although its confidence interval was wide and approached zero. Exploratory analyses undertaken during revision also found additional information about recommendation after conditioning on reported satisfaction, including when the remaining support items were included in the baseline. All results concern observed item scores: neither the continuous-item nor the ordinal factor analyses yielded an admissible seven-factor solution, the estimated increments were sensitive to influential responses, and the convenience sample consisted mainly of business and management students and of graduates reporting retrospectively. These findings motivate further assessment of belonging-related experiences alongside satisfaction and recommendation, with improved measurement and longitudinal sampling; they do not identify a validated belonging construct or an intervention that would increase recommendation.