College satisfaction and the fear of COVID-19 as predictive variables of life satisfaction

This study examines to what extent college satisfaction and the fear of COVID-19 predict life satisfaction in university students. The participants consisted of 618 students from a public or private university in Istanbul, Turkey. In the study, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, Higher Education Life Satisfaction Scale, the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, and Sociodemographic Information Form was used to collect data. To test to what extent college satisfaction and the fear of COVID-19 predict life satisfaction in university students, correlation analyses were performed and then simple linear regression analysis was implemented. Furthermore, independent samples t-test analyses and ANOVA tests were conducted to evaluate whether life satisfaction, college satisfaction, and the fear of COVID-19 scores differed significantly according to age, gender, a socioeconomic level, grade point average (GPA), and the type of university. Therefore, SPSS 22.0 was utilized to analyze the data. The findings obtained from the analyses demonstrated that college satisfaction positively and moderately correlated with life satisfaction, but no significant relationship was found between the fear of COVID-19 and life satisfaction. And it has been shown that college satisfaction explained 12.9% of the variance in life satisfaction. In addition, it has been observed that life satisfaction differed based on a socioeconomic level, that college satisfaction varied with the type of university and GPA, and that the fear of COVID-19 varied by gender.