Abstract:
This study examined the relationship between students’ academic and social need fulfilment and their university-related attitudes at the University of Auckland (UoA). Specifically, the research tested the hypotheses that academic (intellectual, achievement, and skill acquisition) and social (felt university belonging) need fulfilment would positively predict students’ satisfaction with their experience at, and affective commitment to, the university. In addition, academic engagement and friendship prevalence were examined as potential contributors to student need-supply. Students in seven Stage One classes, representing five faculties, were invited to complete questionnaires at three time-points across Semester One, 2010. In total, 1666 students participated – 1241, 797, and 777 in each of Weeks One, Five and Ten/Eleven respectively. 65.5% of participants were female, two-thirds (67.7%) aged either 18 or 19, 87.1% enrolled in four or more papers, and 77.1% had begun their current qualification in the year of the research. Both mid- and late-semester, academic and social need fulfilment positively predicted students’ reported satisfaction and commitment. Engagement and friendship prevalence were each found to contribute unique variance to, particularly same-sphere, need fulfilment, as well as university-related attitudes – both directly, and indirectly through need-supply. Evidence was also found for a mediating effect of satisfaction in need fulfilment-to-attitude relationships, while same sphere need importance was not found to moderate these. Overall, these findings indicate that need fulfilment is a significant contributor to important individual and institutional outcomes, and a need-supply fit a useful framework for understanding student experience. In addition, the specific pattern of variable relationships provides insight into the particular nature of student experience at the UoA. Need fulfilment-to-attitude relationships were complex, differing both across sphere (academic or social) and across time (mid- and late-semester). Most striking, however, was the impact of social need fulfilment late-semester, suggesting that the degree to which students’ feel as though they belong at university has substantial ramifications for their satisfaction and commitment.