SATISFACTION AND SELF-PERCEPTIONS:

HOW ARE THE RELATED?

STEVE GRAUNKE

INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS

PRESENTATION

Discuss the relationship between academic satisfaction and self-

perceptions of learning

Explore a model of academic satisfaction and self-perceptions of learning using the IUPUI Continuing

Student Survey

Demonstrate statistical model features in Mplus (that SPSS and SAS can’t do

as well)

Discuss implications

BACKGROUND

Academic Satisfaction

Indirect assessment

ACADEMICSATISFACTION

Edwards and Waters (1982)• Satisfaction and GPA predict persistence

Schreiner (2009)• Comprehensive study of satisfaction and retention

Pullins (2011)• Sophomore students• Satisfaction with…

• Campus Climate• Advising

INDIRECT ASSESSMENT

Direct Assessment• demonstrati

ons of skills

Indirect Assessment• Feelings

about learning

• Perceptions of abilities

HOW THESE CONSTRUCTS RELATED?

Student-Faculty

interactionGrades

Academic Persistence

RECIPROCAL CAUSATION BETWEEN SATISFACTION AND PERFORMANCE

• Suggests satisfied employees perform better (and vise versa)

Work organization literature

• Based on organizational literature• Satisfaction stronger

Bean & Bradley (1986)

• Reciprocal causation model between grades and satisfaction fits well

• Satisfaction “wins”

Pike (1991)

CURRENT STUDY

Does reciprocal causation better describe the relationship between academic satisfaction and self-perceptions of learning than models in which academic satisfaction predicts self-perceptions (or self-perceptions predicts academic satisfaction)?

IUPUI CONTINUING STUDENT SURVEY

Multipurpose survey

• α = 0.813• “Overall, how satisfied are you with your academic experiences

at IUPUI?”• “How satisfied are you with the quality of the academic programs

at IUPUI?”

Overall Academic Satisfaction

• Communication Skills (4 items)• Quantitative Skills (4 items)• Exponent transformation

Principles of Undergraduate Learning Indirect Assessment

LATENT VARIABLES

Variables that are not observed directly

Indicators Example: Socio-economic status

Advantages Accounts for measurement error

More consistent parameter estimates

Disadvantages Large samples

May need more complicated software to do this

THE LATENT VARIABLE PART

Read and understand books, articles, and instruction manuals (n801)

Formally communicate ideas and information (oral, visual, aural, etc.) (n802)

Write a final report on a project or other work assignment (n803)

Communicate with a team to solve problems (n804)

Solve mathematical problems (n805)

Use mathematics in everyday life (n806)

Understand a statistical report (n807)

Support an argument using quantitative data (n808)

STUDY

521 Senior respondents

3 Exogenous observed variables• Gender (65% female)• IU Cumulative GPA• STEM major

Structural Equation model

MODEL 1/ SATISFACTION PREDICTS SELF-PERCEPTIONS

Gender (Flag for female)

IU Cumulative GPA

STEM major

Academic Satisfaction

Quant. skills

Comm. skills

n801

n802

n803

n804

n805

n806

n808n807

MODEL 2/ SELF-PERCEPTIONS PREDICT SATISFACTION

Gender (Flag for female)

IU Cumulative GPA

STEM major

Academic Satisfaction

Quant. skills

Comm. skills

n801

n802

n803

n804

n805

n806

n808n807

MODEL 3/ RECIPROCAL CAUSATION

Gender (Flag for female)

IU Cumulative GPA

STEM major

Academic Satisfaction

Quant. skills

Comm. skills

n801

n802

n803

n804

n805

n806

n808n807

MODEL ESTIMATION

Maximum Likelihood estimation (ml)• Enables clearer comparisons between

models

Chi-square difference test

• = improvement in model fit

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR OBSERVED VARIABLES

Variables N Mean VarianceSatisfaction with overall academic experiences a 521 4.01 0.586Read and understand books, articles, and instruction manuals b 521 1.43 0.008Formally communicate ideas and information (oral, visual, aural, etc.) b 520 1.42 0.008Write a final report on a project or other work assignment b 521 1.42 0.009Communicate with a team to solve problems b 521 1.42 0.007Solve mathematical problems b 521 1.37 0.013Use mathematics in everyday life b 521 1.37 0.013Understand a statistical report b 521 1.34 0.013Support an argument using quantitative data b 521 1.38 0.012Gender (Flag for Female) 521 0.65 0.227GPA 521 3.18 0.315STEM major 521 0.29 0.207

a Scale for included items: 1 = Very Dissatisfied, 2= Dissatisfied, 3= Neutral, 4= Satisfied, 5= Very Satisfiedb Scale: 1 = Not at all Effective, 2= Somewhat Effective, 3= Effective, 4= Very Effective. Exponent transformation used on these items. Means and variance account for transformation.

MODEL FIT STATISTICS

Null model

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Chi-Square 2180.2 92.3 94.5 89.2

Dof 63 46 46 44

RMSEA -- 0.044 0.045 0.044

CLI -- 0.978 0.977 0.979

TLI -- 0.970 0.969 0.969

RESULTS

• Satisfaction does impact self-perceptions• Self-perceptions do impact satisfaction

All models fit data

Not statistically significant improvement

Significant effects

SO WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THIS?

Four page Research Brief

What interventions effect both

satisfaction and self-perceptions?

Other factors?

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SEM AND MPLUS…

Byrne, B. M. (2012). Structural equation modeling with Mplus. New York, NY: Routledge.

Any Questions?