European Journal of Social Sciences Studies ISSN: 2501-8590 ISSN-L: 2501-8590 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/soc Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1146095 A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA W. O. Adeniyi1i, A. B. Adeniyi2 Ph.D, Department of Educational Foundations and Counselling, 1 Faculty of Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria Department of Management and Accounting, 2 Faculty of Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria Abstract: The study investigated the university life satisfaction among undergraduates. The study employed the survey design technique. The population consisted undergraduates of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. A total of four faculties out of the thirteen faculties in the school were selected using simple random sampling technique. From each faculty, 150 undergraduates were selected using convenience sampling technique. “n adapted instrument titled Satisfaction Scale (SULSS Students University Life was used to collect information from the students and the instrument yielded Spearman Brown Coefficients and Spearman Brown Split-half reliability tests values of 0.77 and 0.83 respectively at 0.05 level of significance. Percentage, rank order and t-test statistics were employed to analyse the data. The results showed that 342 (57%) of undergraduates were highly satisfied with the university life. It was revealed that the most factors that were responsible for the university life satisfaction among the undergraduates were academic activities 563 (94%), recreational activities 521 (87%) and spiritual programmes/activities 521 (88%). Also, the results showed that the problems of university life satisfaction were overcrowded lecture rooms 573 (96%), academic workload 548 (91%) and unstable academic calendar 538 (90%). Finally, the results showed that there was no significant difference between sex and university life satisfaction (t-test = -0.582, df.= 598, p > 0.05), but significant difference was found between place of residence and university life Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 222 W. O. Adeniyi, A. B. Adeniyi A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA satisfaction (t-test = 0.012, df.= 598, p < 0.05), The study concluded that the students were highly satisfied with university life but depended much on factors such as academic activities, recreational activities and spiritual programmes/activities and physical facilities for their satisfaction. Keywords: factors, university, life satisfaction, undergraduates 1. Introduction The main aim of any student is to achieve the highest level of satisfaction by exploring a host of all resources within and outside the confine of the university. Hill (1995) considered higher education as a service industry which places greater emphasis on meeting the expectations and needs of students. This implies that academic degree may be an avenue to a better and more satisfied life among the members of many societies. According to Safari (2007), human is an objective creature always evaluating his/her life and feels no satisfaction until he/she attains his goals. No wonder, a saying among the educated adults school life is the best is a popular slogan which is commonly echoed especially when the adults are reflecting on their experiences on campus. Most at times, many individuals cast their minds and relay many activities they had engaged in during their school days. As they do this, they give account of their previous university activities ranging from academic and non-academic. At this point, individuals view their life’s accomplishments, then evaluate their actions with the ultimate of aim of coming to a conclusion whether they are satisfied with their life patterns on campus or not. From their judgement, life perceived as well-spent will result in sense of well-being and integrity, while an unpleasant or unsatisfactory life will make someone unhappy. Conceptually, satisfaction is seen as a feeling of happiness or pleasure because one has achieved something or got what he wanted. It is regarded as a fulfillment of need or desire, the pleasure obtained by such fulfillment. Also, it is the feeling of pleasure or disappointment attained from comparing a product’s perceived performance (outcome) in relation to his or her expectations. Hence, Adeyemi and Farayola (2014) expressed that life satisfaction involves people thinking about their life as a whole, including factors such as whether they are achieving their goals, are doing as well as other people around them, and are happy generally rather than just right now. In his own view, Beutell (2006) indicated that life satisfaction is an overall assessment of feelings and attitudes about one’s life at a particular in time ranging from negative to positive. While corroborating the above, Huebner, Valois, Paxton and European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 223 W. O. Adeniyi, A. B. Adeniyi A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA Drane, (2005) and Myers and Diener (1995) defined life satisfaction as a cognitive evaluation of one's life as a whole and or of specific life domains. This cognitive assessment however is based on how people believe their life should be in relation to how it is (Paschali & Tsitsas, 2009). Consequent upon the above definitions, Julie and Andrea (2011) explained that life satisfaction, even though, it is sometimes used interchangeably with happiness, however, being happy simply means the current state of one’s emotion, while, life satisfaction is closer to the concept of an overall and more stable living, and realizing the best potential within oneself. Above all, life satisfaction is the judgement or meaning a person gives to his/her life style in terms of its quality. Given the above points, Muhammed and Mohsin (2013) conceived university life satisfaction as a state felt by a person after experience or it is an outcome that fulfills person’s expectations on campus. Sustaining the view, “bbasi, Malik and Imdadullah (2011) believed that it is not really about quality of education received by a student, rather, it is measured based on the student’s self-reported experiences about school activities. In their own reaction, Elliot and Shin (2002) revealed that university life satisfaction is the favourability of subjective evaluation by a student about numerous outcomes and experiences with education and overall environment. In essence, Elliot and Shin (2002) saw the benefits of students’ university life satisfaction as not only to enable universities re-engineer their organizations to adapt to students’ needs, but also to assist them to develop a system for continuous monitoring of how effectively perform their responsibilities to the students. According to Wiers-Jenssen, Stensaker and Grogaard (2002) life satisfaction is an overall response not only to the learning experience of a student but other co-curricular activities. Reacting to the above, Josephat, Ismail and Martin (2014) mentioned that there are two main activities which form students’ satisfaction on campus. These include academic and non-academic. The academic factors include students’ satisfaction with learning activities, environment, facilities, methods etc, while the non-academic factors include co-curricular activities such as sporting, parties or social gathering, religious and commitments and unionism. Also, Haque, Das and Farzana (2001), identified independent factors that can affect student satisfaction based on services offered by universities. These include quality of teaching, student research facilities, library book collections and services, campus infrastructure, canteen facilities, space for group discussions, sport programmes, ICT (PC and Internet) facilities etc. Although, several studies have been carried out on the subject-matter, but, most of the available studies have been conducted in the Western educational context (Maggs, 2014; Arambewela & Hall, 2013) and in the Gulf region, (Parahoo, Harvey, & Tamim, 2013), where both the culture and climate are considerably different from those European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 224 W. O. Adeniyi, A. B. Adeniyi A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA of the Sub-Saharan Africa. Even, in Nigeria, there has not been so much focus on the study of life satisfaction among undergraduates in Nigeria (Oladipo, Adenaike, Adejumo & Ojewumi 2013). Nevertheless, the few research results about the life satisfaction of college or university students, e.g. Chow (2005) have indicated that students were most satisfied with their social relationships and living for example, environment. In their own contrary opinion, Oladipo and Olapegba (2012) found that there was an evidence of low satisfaction with life among undergraduates in Southwestern Nigeria. In Obafemi Awolowo University (O. A. U.), Nigeria, among the undergraduates, there is a general consensus that academic activities of the university are characterized with a lot of ups and down and this is putting a lot of stress on them. Even though, in the midst of this stressful situation, the students are adjusting to the situation, nonetheless, one is uncertain of the students’ university life satisfaction. For instance, a cursory look at the teaching assessment form that students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife are meant to fill, through school’s electronic portal, at the end of each semester has suggested that students may after all, dissatisfied with academic factors and hostel facilities than the non-academic factors which are all components of university life satisfaction. Arising from this assumption, it is not sure the extent of university life satisfaction among the undergraduates of O. A. U. While some students believed that the stressful situation on campus notwithstanding, they are finding the university life quite interesting. Others opined that some situational factors have denied them the satisfaction they would have enjoyed on campus. Given the fact that there are contrary opinions among the students, the present study seeks to investigate the level and identify the factors that are responsible for of university life satisfaction among undergraduates of O. A. U. These are with a view to adding to the existing literature. By and large, various attempts have been made on the factors that are responsible for university life satisfaction among students across continents, countries races, universities. Many of these studies conducted internationally and locally have emphasized specific factors influencing university life satisfaction. For instance, a study carried out in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) by the pair of Wilkins and Stehens Balkrishnan (2013), showed that quality of lecturers, resources and effective use of technology were the most influential factors of university life satisfaction among students in a university in UAE. However, the results generated here were not generalized to all international campuses because of differences in cultures, customs, traditions and social contexts were taken into consideration. Also, the study carried out by Roger and Smith (2010) revealed that the predictors of overall satisfaction of students were real interest in the individual’s learning needs and progress, European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 225 W. O. Adeniyi, A. B. Adeniyi A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA development of understanding of concepts and principles, clear expectations, genuine interest of staff in teaching and realistic job. Furthermore, Douglas, Douglas and Barnes (2006) indicated that students responded that the factors that determined their university life satisfaction were the ones associated with teaching and learning, while the least important associated with the physical facilities. In his own reaction, Coskun (2014) expressed that students gave more importance to academic staff, teaching and relationships apart from technology, administration, and campus facilities as the ingredients of university life satisfaction. Similarly, Haider and Mannan (2014) mentioned that academic staff, teaching level, relationship, technology, administrative styles and campus facilities were the major factors responsible for life satisfaction of students. Besides, Mehdipour and Zerekafi examined the relationship between university services and students’ university life. Their results showed that there was high level of relationship between university services and satisfaction of students to university life. They opined that relationship between students and teachers; school authority and students were the major determinants of satisfaction of university life. In their own submission, Muhammad and Mohson (2013) and Munawar and Musarrat (2011) stated that though there was wide spread that there was relationship between service quality and students’ satisfaction, yet, every aspect of students’ experience should be worthwhile from the day of orientation/matriculation till the day of convocation. Generally, studies have been carried out on the influence of sex on university life satisfaction among students. One research (World Health Organisation) revealed that males were happier than females. Others researches have shown that females were significantly restricted in their ability to move around when compared to their males. And this would limit the level of satisfaction of female students. James and Dorine (2013) carried out a research on international students’ satisfaction of university life and they came up with the findings that female students were found to be more satisfied with the university life than their male counterparts. Supporting this view, Pinquart and Sorensen (2000) asserted that men and women derive satisfaction from different sources. In their study, life satisfaction was more highly related to income for men than for women. Likewise, Sorensen (2000) found that correlations between life satisfaction and gender. While reacting differently, Khartibi (2013) showed the influence of welfare services and management, while revealed that no relationship with student’s sex. Furthermore, Diener, Suh, Lucas and Smith (1999) expressed that men and women have been found to be similar in their overall levels of life satisfaction. On the final note, the findings of Grace, Paul and Moonlong (2003) revealed that there was no significant relationship between student’s sex and university life satisfaction. European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 226 W. O. Adeniyi, A. B. Adeniyi A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA In conclusion, it is of worth note to ascertain if students living on and off campus differed in their level of satisfaction of university life. Adams, Bezner, Drabbs, Zambarano, and Steinhardt (2000) remarked that, the environment in which students live has a direct impact on the student’s overall adjustment. Likewise, according to Dinger (1999), students who lived in environment that is conducive to learning and provided ample study space and opportunities for growth and interaction tend to have an easier time adjusting than students who live in other environment. Also, a study by Kuh (2000) highlighted the important characteristics of a supportive academic environment as one that provided support to students to succeed academically and socially. However, Douglas, et. al. (2006) study showed that physical facilities like hostel ranked least among those factors that bring satisfaction to students. For this reason, the current study is also aimed at examining the effect of residence on university life satisfaction among the students. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/soc/index.php/EJSSS/article/view/294 European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 227