Binolved: Helping Chinese International Students to Get Involved on Campus at Bucknell
According to Astin’s student involvement theory(1984), the greater students’ involvement on campus leads to more desirable educational outcomes. Despite Bucknell University’s tradition of fostering a diverse community, Chinese international students are still a minority group on campus who face challenges and barriers as they explore and participate on campus.
The Problem
How can we improve Chinese international students’ experience in campus involvement so that their overall educational outcomes and college experience at Bucknell will be enhanced?
The Solution
I designed the prototype of Binvolved, a mobile application that supports Chinese international students to better get involved on campus. The prototype is made with Adobe XD, available here.
Literature Review
I collected scholarly articles that concentrate on each of the three variables in the I-E-O model proposed by Astin (1993). Then, I organized these articles into three categories based on the issue they focus on: the characteristics of Chinese international students, the barriers within the environment, and the outcomes of interactions between students and the environment.
After the initial exploration through the literature review, I used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including document analysis, observation, and interviews, to learn more about Chinese international students at Bucknell University. I conducted four interviews with the students and faculty members at Bucknell and observed the interactions between Chinese international students and their peers during two club events.
Themes
Based on my research, I discovered three overarching themes that describe the initiatives behind Chinese international students’ participation in activities on campus and the barriers they face.
- “It really depends on what they want.” Individuals in the group of Chinese international students at Bucknell University have disparate goals and expectations on what they will gain from campus involvement.
- “Compared to psychological barriers, language is a minor.” Chinese international students feel least prepared for campus activities during the freshman year since most of them just arrived in the U.S. and are experiencing cultural shocks. However, there are fewer opportunities and more academic pressure after the freshman year.
- “Belongingness comes from being recognized and achieving self-worth.” The feelings of being recognized or being able to contribute to the group are closely related to the sense of belongingness. Especially, my participants highlighted that being recognized by their professors also increases the sense of belongingness.
Solution
- Binvolved is a mobile application that targets the three themes that describe the challenges Chinese international students encountered. Through its nature of social media application and its unique features, it will effectively help not only Chinese international students but also those who face similar barriers when participating on campus. For example, international students from other countries, first-year students, transfer students can also benefit from this application.
Features
- Tags for personalization & customization. The tags make it easy for users to discover common interests with new friends and identify clubs that have members with similar tags, such as personal interests in painting, baking, or applying to grad school. In this way, they can quickly see themselves fit with a club or an upcoming event and overcome the psychological barriers of getting involved.
- Sync friend contacts from other social media apps. This feature connects Binvolved with other social media applications the users are familiar with and makes it easier and fast for new users to start a community at Binvolved.
- Earn badges and increase the activeness score for club or individual achievements. Clubs can earn badges like “Top 3 faculty involvement”, “Top 1 popular clubs”, “Top 2 new clubs” according to the statistics. The activeness score is associated with how active is an individual user or an organization involved. This score can be increased by a lot of ways like joining an event, creating an event, getting profile views, and getting new members. These two honor systems encourage individual users to stay engaged and provide a chance for club members to contribute to their group thus increasing their sense of belongingness in the organization.
Design
Discover
On the discover page, there is a search button that allows users to type the information they would like to explore. Below the search button is a list of events, clubs, or new friends that are personalized according to the users’ own interest tags. On each event block, key information like the name of the event, date and time, organization are displayed. Moreover, users can also see the number of friends who are already registered. Through this information, the user can decide whether they are interested in this event. If they are interested, they can slide the block to the right to see the options of adding this event to their calendar, saving this event to their favorite, or share this event with their friends. On each club block, the key information displayed is the badges earned by the club, the time commitment, and the size of the club. Sliding the club block to the right will allow the user to easily apply, save to their favorite, or share the club with their friends. For each friend block, the information displayed includes their name and class, as well as the tags they own, including their club memberships and the events they have participated in. By sliding the block to the right, the user can add this friend contact to favorite, say hi, or send a friend request.
Filter
If the user clicks on the search button, the filter window will pop up. For clubs, the users can filter by club size, time commitment, activeness score, honors, or the themes; for events, the users can filter by date, duration, entry fee, organizations, or themes. With the filter, the users can customize their exploration and find their ideal clubs or events to join.
Club Profile
The club profile page features four blocks of information including a statistic board, a club moment clip, contact information, and top tags among the members. The statistic board displays the purpose of the club, the time commitment, the current activeness score, and the number of badges earned. The club moment clip is a short video that showcases the highlights of the club events and fun. The contact information is useful for users to ask questions or apply. The top tags display the top tags owned by the club members, and it highlights the tags that are also owned by the user so they can see how they could fit in with the club. Through these blocks of information, users can easily tell what this club is for, what is the time commitment like, how active is this club, and what kind of people are joining this club. These are all very important information that corresponds to the common concerns that came up during the user interview. On this page, users could also share the club with their friends or save it to their favorite.
User Profile & Contact
On the user profile page, the users can manage their tags so that Binvolved can provide them personalized experience and help them to discover events, clubs, friends that they are interested in and fit well with. On the contact page, the user can click on the sync button to sync their friend contacts from other social media applications. This feature makes it convenient for the users and easier for them to start their social community on Binvolve. They can also start conversations or share their saved events, clubs, people with their friends by simply clicking on the message icon.
Conclusion
After I created this prototype, I have presented it to my professor and the interviewees who participated in the research process. Although I have not yet conducted formal user testing, they have been giving me positive feedback. This project inspired me to engage in more educational projects that use technology to facilitate not only learning in the classroom but also learning experience outside of the classroom.
Thanks for reading!
