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Contribution: This article discusses instructor decisions that support social capital development in an online, asynchronous, team-based introduction to electrical engineering course. Background: Online learning is changing how instructors and students interact with each other and course materials. There is a need to understand how to support students' social capital development during online engineering courses. Research Questions: What aspects of an online, asynchronous, team-based, introductory electrical engineering course gave students instrumental and expressive social capital? What decisions did the instructor make to support the development of strong and weak social ties? Methodology: A case study approach was used to analyze interview data from the students, instructor, and graduate teaching assistant (TA) from an online course. Findings: The results indicate effective lecture delivery and a team-based format can provide students with instrumental social supports they need to meet learning objectives in an online asynchronous, introduction to electrical engineering course. To facilitate the development of expressive support and stronger ties, instructors should incorporate these goals in their course design decisions.

This study examines university students’ Sense of Belonging and Satisfaction with their university during the pandemic using the Adapted Perceived Cohesion scale. Data collected from students attending a large midwestern university were used for confirmatory factor analysis and linear regression (n = 1,613). Results confirm the scale is consistent with the original instrument, and Satisfaction can be used to predict 65% of Sense of Belonging. On average, students reported low cohesion (M = 6.7, SD = 1.9), with students reporting a lower Satisfaction (M = 3.3, SD = 1.0) than Sense of Belonging (M = 3.4, SD = 0.8). Students who started their degree before the pandemic reported a lower Perceived Cohesion than students who started during the pandemic