IDENTIFYING AND ASSESSING COMPONENTS OF S TUDENT SATISFACTION

Theories of attitude formation and job satisfaction are used to derive assumptions on the most important determinants of satisfaction or dis satisfaction of university students. Confirmative and explorative anal yses of the responses of 1800 students from various departments led to four main factors. Satisfaction with distinct courses turns out to be conceptually independent from the general satisfaction with studied s ubjects, with studying conditions, and with coping with work and life stress. Four short and reliable scales were constructed to assess thes e factors. They can be applied as supplements to existing instruments for the student evaluation of college and university teaching and they can be used as criterion variables to select the most appropriate ite ms for such questionnaires.