Friendship and collaborative study are associated with belonging in Russian study

Updated Sep 07, 2026

Updated, 7 September 2026: This briefing uses the authors’ institutional abstract. We could not review the complete journal methods or results.

What the abstract reports

Kseniia Vilkova, Oksana Dremova and Irina Shcheglova analyse three waves of undergraduate data from selective Russian universities. They examine new friendships, close relationships with classmates, collaborative study and extracurricular involvement.

Friendship quantity and study collaboration were associated with belonging. Friendship quality and extracurricular participation were not statistically significant after background characteristics were controlled.

Those results do not show that friendship quality or extracurricular activities have no value, or that one intervention is proven superior. Longitudinal observation alone does not establish causality. The accessible abstract does not provide coefficients, attrition, detailed measures or model checks, and it cannot establish a UK effect.

Questions for local belonging work

Our suggestion is to ask students where they find people to study with and which settings they find difficult to enter. Consider opportunities within teaching alongside other aspects of university life, without assuming that one route suits everyone.

If an institution changes course activities, evaluate the actual change and its intended outcome. Keep accounts from participants and non-participants in view. The NSS methodology explains limits of descriptive comment analysis; comments cannot by themselves establish an intervention’s effect on belonging.

Reference

Vilkova, K., Dremova, O. and Shcheglova, I. (2026). The power of friendship and study collaboration on the development of students’ sense of belonging: A three-year longitudinal study at Russian universities. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. Paper; institutional abstract.