Measuring Academic Life Satisfaction in Portuguese Students

Background

Academic Life Satisfaction (ALS) is a complex multifactorial construct that includes the wide experiences of the students’ life in the campus, as well the quality of students’ adaptation to academic environment [1, 2]. Academic adjustment is a major challenge for freshman that involves academic satisfaction, developmental aspects (personal, social and vocational), as well the academic environment and features of attended campus [3]. Currently, students’ academic life satisfaction plays an important role as a key indicator of students’ success and well-being [2, 4]. In Portugal, in the last two decades a discussion on the construct and measurement of ALS remains [4, 5]. Yet, there is a lack of instruments to measure ALS. So, this paper aims to present a review of Academic Life Satisfaction concept elements and some measurement instruments.

Academic Life Satisfaction

Academic life satisfaction (ALS) encompasses overall the experiences regarding to students’ life in the academic environment and shows the quality of campus adaptation [4]. Literature review shows that three aspects must be considered to study and understand academic life satisfaction´s multifactorial concept: (1) higher education transition is a vulnerability period with multiple and Nursing & Healthcare International Journal

complex adjustment tasks and setting specificities; (2) adaptation tasks involve students' personal characteristics and may disturb their health, wellbeing and performance (3) students' ALS play a significant role in measuring institutional effectiveness [4, 6, 7]. Recent research about student’s transition to college established the positive relation between adaptability and life satisfaction [8]. The accomplishment of this transition depends on student’s wellbeing, and how they face and surpass their challenges [6, 9]. An important contributes to develop of ALS construct and measures came from the Multidimensional Model of Adjustment of Young People to the University context (MMAU) [10]. MMAU model advocates that student´s transition and adjustment to the academic context do not occur dissociated from human´s development or learning processes, on the contrary, it covers several dimensions: satisfaction with the pedagogical relations with teacher; physical environment and facilities of the campus; personal commitment to the course; extracurricular activities on campus; setting facilities to study; students skills and competences; self-perception of academic performance; and relationship with colleagues and teachers [4, 10]. In the scope of MMAU´s model, the concept of ALS is influenced by student´s personal characteristics, wellbeing and, by the subjective assessment and value of circumstantial academic experiences, all this combining with the cognitive and affective components [10, 11]. So, ALS is a dynamic concept covering students' personal characteristics, relationships with teachers and colleagues, the quality of the curriculum and teaching, as well the conditions provided by the campus features and environment [5, 12].

Adjustment and Wellbeing

Student´s adjustment and wellbeing involved several tasks grouped in four domains: (a) academic - (typically demanding) to continuous adaptations to new learning strategies, teaching and evaluation system; (b) personal - to establish identity, expand self-awareness, develop self- esteem and a personal view of the world; (c) social - to develop progressively more mature interpersonal relationships (family, colleagues, teachers, colleagues of the opposite sex and authority figures); (d) vocational - to strength vocational identity and decision making, to explore and commit with professional goals. ALS´s concept involves a multifaceted complexity process of experiences (personal, affective, cognitive aspects and institutional features and facilities) [4, 7, 11]. Hence, it is not easy to limit and to identify ALS´s construct components, and to have agreement about how to measure it accurately [4, 12, 13].

ALS Measurements

International research indicates some relevant instruments to measure ALS: the College Student Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSSQ) [1], with 70 items (5 points Likert scale) and 5 subscales (comprehension, social life, work conditions, recognition and educational quality); the College Student Survey (CSS) used by the Higher Education Research Institute(HERI), with items covering curriculum and teaching, services and support, student life, relationships with teachers and conditions and equipment(HERI) [14]; the Student Satisfaction Inventory™(SSI)includes 45 core questions, three summary questions, and several standard demographic items. Additionally, institutions can add up to 10 campus- specific questions (7 points Likert scale). In Portuguese speaking countries studies, some instruments with suitable psychometric properties came up to measure ALS: the Questionnaire of Academic Experience (QAE) [15, 16, 17], with 170 items and 17 subscales, later reduced to 60 items and 5 dimensions’ structure (personnel; interpersonal; career; learning; institutional) and a Brazilian short version (QAE-r) [18], with 55 items and same 5 subscales structure showing appropriated; the Satisfaction with Academic Experience Scale(SAES) [19] has 35 items distributed by 3 factors (satisfaction with course; opportunities and development; satisfaction with the institution); and the Academic Satisfaction Scale for College Students (ASSCS) [12] with 35 items (4point Likert scale), distributed by 4 factors (pedagogic milieu; affectivity; campus milieu; self-esteem.