College Satisfaction, Sense of Achievement, Student Happiness and Sense of Belonging of Freshmen in Chinese Private Colleges: Mediation Effect of Emotion Regulation

Sense of belonging constitutes a critical component of college students’ retention and academic achievement, especially in disadvantaged higher education institutions such as private colleges in China. Using nationwide survey data (n = 3816) from Chinese private colleges, this study explores how college satisfaction, sense of achievement, and student happiness contribute to freshmen’ sense of belonging. Structural equation modeling analyses have identified the significant positive associations between freshmen’s emotion regulation and sense of belonging. In particular, emotion regulation plays a mediating role in the relations between college satisfaction, sense of achievement, student happiness, and the sense of belonging. Therefore, private colleges should design and implement orientation programs to improve freshmen’s learning experience, especially college satisfaction and student happiness, to enhance their sense of belonging.

Risk Intelligence as a Resource in Career Transition: The Role of College Satisfaction on the Visions about Future Jobs

(1) Background: University transition is a critical step in career construction due to the uncertainty and unpredictability of socioeconomic conditions; these conditions compel people to manage a greater quantity of perceived risks associated with their career projects than in the past, and to face unexpected situations that could compromise their quality of life in educational and work contexts. After all, experiencing well-being during the university path can undoubtedly affect the visions of one’s future work, especially when a transition period is nearby. The present study aimed to explore the role of subjective risk intelligence in expectations about future work, analyzing the potential mediational role of academic satisfaction in this relationship. (2) Methods: A longitudinal study was carried out on 352 Italian university students at the end of the degree course. We used the following measures: in T1, Subjective risk intelligence scale, College Satisfaction scale; in T2, three items assessing the expectations about future work. (3) Results: The main findings showed that subjective risk intelligence has both direct and indirect effects (through the mediation of college satisfaction) on the expectations about future work. (4) Conclusions: The ability to manage risks, also through the contribution of domain-specific satisfaction, can lead to positive expectations toward one’s future work. This could increase the likelihood to perform career-related behaviors in a more proactive way if people have high risk management skills and high levels of academic satisfaction with their university path during transition.

The Effect of Lecturer Competence in Online Learning Methods on Student College Satisfaction During the Pandemic

The first quarter of 2020 has been a difficult time for the global community. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is affecting various sectors, one of which is education. Physical distancing policies allow learning to be done remotely. Based on the conditions of distance learning, this study wanted to determine the effect of lecturer co mpetence on student satisfaction during a pandemic. The data was collected by distributing questionnaires to college students using purpose sampling. Data analysis using SEM-PLS method. The results showed that social and personality competence had an effect on student satisfaction, but lecturers' pedagogical and professional competence had no effect on student satisfaction during the pandemic. This can be shown from the inadequate infrastructure of distance learning. Lecturers who are needed now are lecturers who have the power of creativity in delivering material so that the delivery of material to students is more interesting and varied in online learning.

Other-Contingent Extraversion and Satisfaction

We conceptualize other-contingent extraversion as an individual difference in the tendency to elevate one’s state extraversion when interacting with friendly others. Using experience sampling data from 75 college students, we assessed other-contingent extraversion to predict subjective well-being, and further examined whether implicit theory of personality would moderate such a prediction. Results indicate that, despite a general positive association between others’ friendliness and one’s state extraversion, individuals differed in the degree to which they manifested state extraversion in response to others’ friendliness, allowing us to model this individual difference as other-contingent extraversion. Other-contingent extraversion interacted with implicit theory to predict college satisfaction but not life satisfaction. Specifically, other-contingent extraversion had a more positive association with college satisfaction for respondents with a stronger incremental perspective (malleable view) of personality. Our study contributes to personality research by introducing other-contingent extraversion as a unit of personality.