Sense of Place to Campus amongst Undergraduate Students in USM

Campus life is very important for the undergraduate students during their experience. This study explores the undergraduate students-campus relationship in University Sains Malaysia (USM). Using questionnaire survey to 114 respondents and applying SPSS to analyze, the students' sense of place to campus with three constructs of place dependence, place attachment and place identity is presented. The international and local students' place identity varied significantly while their place dependence and place attachment showed no significant difference. The students' sense of place in the three constructs varied significantly by different races. Based on the results in this study and relative literature, this paper proposes that place identity may represent a higher hierarchy of people - place relationship than place dependence and place attachment.