Factor structure
The University Student Motivation and Satisfaction Questionnaire 2

 James Neill

Contents

Introduction

"The University Student Motivation and Satisfaction Questionnaire version 2" (TUSMSQ2) was developed to measure students' demographics and academic background, motivation to attend university, and satisfaction with university.

Motivation

Version 1

An initial search for a multi-dimensional measure of the motivations of students for attending university did not identify a suitable instrument.

Consequently, 30 motivation items were constructed to reflect six proposed motivations for attending university.  The items were also designed to reflect two widely used "super-factors", intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.  However, the structure of student motivation is debated in the literature (e.g., Hwang, Echols, & Vrongistonos, 2002; Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Brière, Senécal, & Vallières (1993).

Version 2

In 2004, version 1 was administered to 247 University of Canberra students by third year psychology students as part of a research methods class exercise.  An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed the expected 6 factor structure.  However, it also indicated some areas for improvement.  Re-examination of the face validity of the items and the EFA results lead to revisions of item wording for 8 out of the 30 items.  These changes are summarised in TUSMSQ1 - Changes to Motivation for v2 (.doc).

Version 2 also added an open-ended question asking respondents to identify up to three main motivations for their decision to be a university student.  Qualitative analysis of this data will help to determine the extent to which the empirical items adequately capture university students' salient motivations.

The hypothesised structure for both versions is:

  • Rejection of Alternative Options (Extrinsic) - Items 1, 7, 13, 19, 25
  • Self-exploration (Intrinsic) - Items 2, 8, 14, 20, 26
  • Career & Qualifications (Extrinsic) - Items 3, 9, 15, 21, 27
  • Social Enjoyment (Extrinsic) - Items 4, 10, 16, 22, 28
  • Social Pressure (Extrinsic) - Items 5, 11, 17, 23, 29
  • Altruism (Intrinsic) - Items 6, 12, 18, 24, 30

Satisfaction

CSSQ

University student satisfaction literature, mostly from the USA, has focused on approximately five dimensions (Betz, Klingensmith & Menne, 1970; Betz, Menne, Starr, & Klingensmith, 1971; DeVore, 1981; Okun, et al, 1986).  These studies used the College Students' Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSSQ).  However:

  1. There appeared to be several weak primary factor loadings and cross-loadings.
  2. Many of the CSSQ items weren't culturally relevant or appropriate for an Australian university student population of the 2000's compared to the USA college student population of the 1960's and 1970's.

Version 1

Previous unpublished testing of TUSMSQ1 (which contained modified items from the CSSQ) items with Australian university students suggested three distinct areas of satisfaction.

Version 2

Based on earlier work on the CSSQ and TUSMSQ1, 19 items were selected for the TUSMSQ2 to measure in an effort to measure three satisfaction factors:

  • Campus  - Items 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19
  • Social - Items 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17
  • Education - Items 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18

Version 2 also introduced two  open-ended questions asking respondents to identify the most and least satisfying aspects of university.  Qualitative analysis of this data will help to determine the extent to which the empirical items are adequately capturing university students' salient areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Refining the models

Initially look for these proposed factor structures in the data, but feel free to ultimately derive the number of factors and items which you deem to be appropriate to your research question and to the data.  In factor analysis there is rarely a perfect or entirely correct solution.  Also remember that it would be unlikely that all factors and items would load neatly as predicted.  Thus, consider whether there are factors and items that should be dropped.  Two quite different factor analytic solutions could conceivably both receive high grades.

References

Background references on university student motivation and satisfaction research can be found on e-reserve.