Perceived Justice and its Relationship with University Belonging among Students of Salahaddin University-Erbil

Abstract

Perceived justice and university belonging are fundamental variables that contribute to enhance students psychological and academic adjustment within the university environment, owing to them in strengthening students’ connection to their institutions and their motivation toward achieving their educational goal. Driven by the importance of these two variables in university life. The current study aimed to identify the level of perceived justice and university belonging among Salahaddin university students as a whole and according to gender, specialization, and academic stage, as well as detecting the relationship and predictive ability of perceived justice in predicting university belongings among a sample of (300) male and female students. The sample was selected using the proportional stratified method from Salahaddin University-Erbil.

To achieve the objectives of the study, a perceived justice scale was developed. While the researcher relied on the university belonging scale prepared by (Al- Mawla & Nayla, 2019). The validity and reliability of both scales were verified. After the final administration of both scales to the study sample, the data were coded, processed and analyzed statistically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

The results revealed that the sample exhibited a good, statistically significant level of both perceived justice and university belonging among university students. Regarding gender, statistically significant differences were found in favor of females across both variables. In terms of academic specialization, no statistically significant difference was observed for perceived justice; however, a significant difference was found in favor of humanitarian specializations regarding university belonging.

As for the academic stage, fourth-year students showed a higher mean score in perceived justice compared to their second- and third-year peers. For university belonging, third-year students exhibited a lower level compared to second- and fourth-year students statistically significant, while no significant difference were found between the second and fourth stages due to the convergence of their mean. Finally, the results showed a moderate positive correlation between the two variables, alongside the capacity of perceived justice to significantly predict university belonging among Salahaddin university-Erbil.