Development and Psychometric Study of the Academic Life Satisfaction Scale (ALSS) in a Higher Education Students Sample

Background

The Academic Life Satisfaction Scale (ALSS) measure the student's academic experiences on campus and the quality of their adjustment to the academic life and environment. The development procedure of the ALSS is based on the literature review and Multidimensional Model of Adjustment of Young People to the University context [1].

Currently, academic life satisfaction (ALS) plays an important role im campus, both as a key indicator of students’ well-being, as well as an institutional measure of success and effectiveness [2]. ALS refers to the student’s perception of positive feelings and attitude towards his/her learning activities [3]. Globally encompasses student life experiences in the academic environment and shows the quality of campus [4, 5]. Happy students with their studies (considered “satisfied”) adopts an active learning attitude, while unhappy´s (considered “dissatisfied”) adopts a negative or passive attitude [6]. The degree of student satisfaction is the margin between “level of anticipation” and “actual results” so, a smaller margin would mean greater satisfaction and a larger margin would mean lower satisfaction [7].

In addition, ALS is a complex multifactorial construct that includes a broad of students’ life experiences on campus and shows the quality of students’ adaptation to academic environment. These aspects have leading to a debate centred on ALS´s construct and measurement [3]. Therefore, over the past two decades the discussion about students’ ALS reliable instruments remains [8]. literature review point out three aspects to be considered to measure students’ ALS: (1) higher education transition is a vulnerability period with multiple and complex adjustment tasks and setting specificities; (2) adaptation tasks involve students' personal characteristics and may disturb their health and performance (3) students' ALS play a significant role in measuring institutional effectiveness [1, 3, 9].

Overall, authors agree that transition and adjustment to academic life 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 [10]. The positive accomplishment of this transition includes academic satisfaction, which in turn depends on the degree of each surpassed challenge by the students. Currently, the main developmental students tasks involved in this period are grouped in four domains: (a) academic - 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 [3, 11].

Because student´s ALS involves a complex multifactorial process of experiences (personal, affective, cognitive aspects and institutional features and facilities), it is difficult to limit and identify the ALS´s construct components [3]. Hence, there is no consensus about to how to measure the students´ ALS accurately [9, 12]. However, understanding the underlying dimensions of student´s ALS as well the factors that contribute to student’s satisfaction has a great potential benefit for institutions, students and society [8].

Literature Review

Literature shows a lack of instruments to gather data about students’ self-perceptions of academic satisfaction and experiences on campus [4]. Nevertheless we find some relevant instruments such as: the Student Satisfaction Questionnaire [13], with 70 items and 5 subscales (comprehension, social life, work conditions, recognition and educational quality); the College Student Survey [14], with 27 items and 5 subscales (curriculum and teaching, services and support, student life, relationships with teachers and conditions and equipment); and the Student Satisfaction Inventory [15], original version (79 items) and the short one (6 items). Yet, these instruments assign insufficient attention to interpersonal (relations), academic (course) and setting (institution) dimensions, covering merely intrapsychic variables, such as cognitive and psychosocial aspects [12, 7].

In the late nineties, in Portugal, some instruments were developed to screen and study Portuguese students’ adjustment processes to obtain success in the first years of college. Mostly based on MMAU model [12, 3], point that student´s academic adjustment does not occur dissociated from human´s development or learning processes, on the contrary, it covers dimensions such as: satisfaction with the pedagogical relationships 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 [1, 3, 4].

In the scope of MMAU´s the concept of ALS is grounded on student´s personal issues and academic setting. From this point of view, ALS is the students´ subjective assessment of the quality and value of the academic experience, combining cognitive and affective components. This model covers students' personal characteristics, interpersonal relationship with teachers and colleagues, the quality of the curriculum and teaching, as well the conditions provided by the campus environment [3, 12].

A second perspective, defines ALS as students´ perception about the educational experience that includes the personal commitment and involvement with the college, and the decision to stay or leave the college. It covers cognitive-affective dimensions (socio-relational, personal, interpersonal, institutional and curricular aspects), and circumstantial settings of the campus (grounds, buildings and arrangements) [2]. This conception accepts that ALS is a dynamic concept, so it is variable along students´ academic path, as well influenced by them personal characteristics [1, 7].

In Portuguese-speaking countries, regardless the lack of tools to measure ALS, literature review show four important self-report instruments: (1) Questionnaire of Academic Experience [2], with 60 items and 5 dimensions’ structure: personnel (13 items α=0,87); interpersonal (13 items α=0,86); career (13 items α=0,91); learning (13 items α=0,82); institutional (8 items α=0,71), that explain 41,7% of the variance. The Brazilians short version [16], has 55 items and the same 5 dimensions and total Cronbach's alpha is 0,88; (2) The Academic Satisfaction Questionnaire [2], with 13 items and 3 dimensions: curricular satisfaction (5 items α= 0,74); satisfaction with the institution (4 items α= 0,64); socio-relational satisfaction (4 items α= 0,66), that explain 51% of the variance and total Cronbach's alpha = 0,78; (3) the Satisfaction with Academic Experience Scale [17], with 35 items and 3 dimensions: satisfaction with course (13 items α= 0,90); opportunities and development (10 items α= 0,87); satisfaction with the institution (11 items α= 0,87) that explain 47,7% of the variance and total Cronbach's alpha=0,94 and subsequent studies also show good psychometric properties [3]; (4) and the Academic Satisfaction Scale for College Students [12], with 35 items and 4 dimensions: pedagogic milieu (11 items α= 0,87); affectivity (10 items α= 0,76); campus milieu (7 items α= 0,73); self-esteem (7 items α= 0,72) that explain 41,8% of the variance.

However, despite the evidence of good psychometric properties, in terms of validity and precision, most of the instruments above differ in terms of variables and dimensions, showing some lack of constructs strength [3, 5, 7]. Also, they are to extensive, meticulous or very specific and do not address important aspects of ALS construct - such as personal and setting elements, which are central dimensions to adjustment process to college [4]. We decided to develop a new potential instrument to measure ALS based on a theoretical framework that contents the student´s unique perception of life satisfaction and the peculiarities of campus_,_ both dimensions equally involved on students’ academic life experience. Hence, the purpose of this study is to develop and to test psychometric properties on the self- administered ALSS in a Portuguese student’s sample.

Participants

The pilot version of the ALSS was tested in a sample of 500 freshmen and sophomore students attending Military, public and private universities and institutes from Lisbon district, Portugal. We appraised the sample size sufficient to obtain sensible psychometric estimations and we set up the inclusion criteria: aged between 18 and 24 years old; and to be Portuguese native speaker. The inquiry form to collect information was anonymous and voluntary. The return fill rate was 68%.

Procedure

Based on literature review, frist a list of items was carefully selected regarding to: personal, career, interpersonal, study, satisfaction with the course, opportunity for development and satisfaction with the institution, from two instruments, underlying theoretical MMAU model variables. Second, we used ten students focus group interview methodology to select the most relevant items (score rank) that express events and issues that occur during life in campus. This group items were reviewed by an expert panel to verify the clarity, pertinence and suitability of the selected items. Finally, a pilot version facial validity was appraised by a different group of fifteen students using the Thinking Aloud Method [18], to analyse the adequacy, acceptability of the items and to check if the wording used was clear. After minor lexicon adjustments, a corrected eight items pilot version was produced named ALSS.

After formal authorizations, all students were invited to participate. The data was collected during October to December 2016 thru an online query using an access link sent to students’ campus email. After logged in on platform, students had to validate the Informed Term of Consent to access and fill the socio demographic, academic information and other measures.

Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 20.0. Psychometric evaluation of the ALSS was conducted in successive phases. To determine item-to-total correlations, item-to-dimension correlations and total Cronbach’s alpha we use Personal Satisfaction and Satisfaction with the Academic Environment dimensions. To determine the underlying factor structure in the ALSS was used the Principal Components Analysis (PCA).

Convergent validity was examined using Spearman correlation coefficient (rho). We assumed that adequate reliability would be coefficients above 80, for both analyses.

The present investigation complies with all ethical principles assumed by Helsinki Declaration and Human Subjects Protection; in addition it was approved by the Ethics Committee Review Board of the institutions involved. All participants were previously asked to validate written informed consent before voluntarily fill the online survey form, provided with information on the purpose and implications of the study. Also, they were informed that all data would remain anonymous, and without any possibility of identifying the participants. All were informed of their right to withdraw from the study at any time.