Psychological Hardiness in Learning and Quality of College Life of Business Students: Evidence from Vietnam

J Happiness Stud (2012) 13:1091–1103 DOI 10.1007/s10902-011-9308-0 RESEARCH PAPER Psychological Hardiness in Learning and Quality of College Life of Business Students: Evidence from Vietnam Tho D Nguyen • Clifford J Shultz II • M Daniel Westbrook Published online: 20 November 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V 2011 Abstract Vietnam’s continuing economic transformation has sharply increased the demand for highly-qualified business graduates Vietnamese universities have responded to this increase in demand by improving the quality of their programs and raising their performance standards The degree to which high-quality competitive programs increase students’ satisfaction with their educational experience is determined by their psychological hardiness in learning, their learning motivation, and their assessments of the functional value of business education This study gathered survey data from a convenience sample of 1,024 business students in Vietnam, then validated measures of four constructs: Quality of College Life, psychological hardiness in learning, learning motivation, and perceived functional value of business education The relationships among the constructs were estimated by Structural Equation Modeling The results demonstrate that psychological hardiness in learning and learning motivation have statistically significant positive impacts on students’ perceived Quality of College Life The impacts are significantly stronger for students with higher assessments of the functional value of a business education These findings suggest that universities could enhance the Quality of College Life and academic performance by offering programs to cultivate students’ psychological hardiness in learning and their learning motivation, and by providing them with objective information about the functional value of business careers T D Nguyen (&) UEH-UWS DBA Program, A208, University of Economics, HCM City, 59C Nguyen Dinh Chieu, District 3, HCM City, Vietnam e-mail: ndtho@ueh.edu.vn; tho.nguyen@uws.edu.au T D Nguyen University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia C J Shultz II Loyola University Chicago, Maguire Hall, Pearson St., Chicago, IL 60611, USA e-mail: cshultz@luc.edu M D Westbrook Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, P.O Box 23689, Doha, Qatar e-mail: westbrom@georgetown.edu 123 1092 T D Nguyen et al Keywords Quality of college life Á Learning motivation Á Psychological hardiness in learning Á Vietnam Introduction Vietnam’s movement toward a market-oriented economy and accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) have created several opportunities and challenges Opportunities include new markets for goods and services exports, access to imported raw materials and technologies, and more opportunities for international business co-operation However, a more open market leads to more vigorous competition and to imposition of stricter business standards such as product quality and safety (Nguyen and Nguyen 2010) Among several challenges, lack of knowledge about business management is perhaps one of the most pressing for Vietnam Thus, a crucial role of Vietnamese universities is to provide qualified business graduates for the Vietnamese labor market (Nguyen 2009) Understanding the labor market’s need for competent graduates, Vietnamese universities are striving to improve the quality of their programs In so doing, universities put more pressure on Vietnamese students Students now have more assignments and examinations to complete during their study time and performance standards are rising While raising objective standards is important for improving educational outcomes, the literature on psychological hardiness, learning motivation, and quality of college life suggests strategies for stimulating students to enhance their learning performance in a more competitive environment In this paper we use data on Vietnamese business students to estimate a model relating psychological hardiness in learning to students’ perceptions of quality of college life The results for Vietnamese students are consistent with previous literature and with our hypotheses: psychological hardiness in learning is positively related to perceived quality of college life, is mediated by learning motivation, and is moderated by students’ perceptions of the functional value of business education These results guide our recommendations on how Vietnamese universities can enhance students’ abilities to make the most of their educational opportunities Cole et al (2004) document the relationship between student psychological hardiness and learning motivation and Tharenou (2001) finds a relationship between learning motivation and learning outcomes In addition, Rowold (2007) shows that higher learning motivation improves the ability to apply knowledge and skills to one’s work environment Maddi (2002) argues that psychological hardiness, by enhancing individuals’ abilities to turn challenges into ‘‘developmentally provocative’’ opportunities, contributes to overall quality of life Sirgy et al (2007) develop and validate a measure of the Quality of College Life (QCL) that pertains specifically to the university experience We document the roles that psychological hardiness in learning, learning motivation, and functional value of business education play in determining the QCL of Vietnamese business students Based on our results we advocate that the universities complement their higher performance standards with efforts to enhance QCL by offering training to enhance learning motivation and hardiness in learning, and by offering information on the functional value of business education We expect that improvements in these determinants of QCL will enable students to rise to the challenge posed by higher standards The remainder of the paper presents our literature review and hypotheses, methodology, results, and discussion and conclusions 123 Psychological Hardiness in Learning and Quality of College Life 1093 Literature Review and Hypotheses This study examines the relationships between the QCL, psychological hardiness in learning, and learning motivation of business students in Vietnam A conceptual model is depicted in Fig In this model, psychological hardiness in learning has both direct and indirect (mediated by learning motivation) impacts on QCL The model also shows the moderating roles of functional value of business education perceived by students on the impacts of both psychological hardiness in learning and learning motivation on quality of college life 2.1 Quality of College Life Life satisfaction, subjective well-being, and quality of life are concepts that have attracted many researchers in the past several years (e.g., Cummins 2010; Cummins and Nistico 2002; Sirgy et al 2007) Quality of life is a multidimensional concept that has been measured in a variety of ways (Vaez et al 2004; Zullig et al 2009) It can be defined in terms of overall life satisfaction (e.g., Vaez et al 2004; Verbrugge and Asconi 1987) or it can focus on particular aspects of life In this paper, we follow Sirgy et al (2007) in exploring Quality of College Life (QCL), which is defined as students’ satisfaction with their educational experience during the time they study and live at university Research on QCL can be divided into two main streams: research on factors affecting QCL and research on measuring it (Posadzki et al 2009; Sirgy et al 2007; Zullig et al 2009) Our paper contributes to the first stream of research; we examine factors that affect QCL of Vietnamese business students A number of studies explore the factors affecting quality of college life in the developed world For example, Vaez et al (2004) examine the relationship between health status and quality of college life and discover that the quality of life for university students is lower than that of their working peers Research conducted by Cha (2003) indicates that there is a positive relationship between quality of college life and personal factors such as optimism, self-esteem, etc Chow (2005) showed that socio-economic status, experience in learning, living conditions, and other factors have positive relationships with students’ well-being During their years at university students are called upon to develop their cognitive and creative abilities; they develop knowledge and skills that will admit them to their chosen Learning motivation H3 H1 Psychological hardiness in learning Quality of college of life H2 H4 H5 Functional value of business education Fig Conceptual model 123 1094 T D Nguyen et al professions Given the high stakes involved, this experience can be very stressful Maddi (2002) argues that people who possess psychological hardiness find stressful challenges ‘‘developmentally provocative’’ and tend to respond to such challenges as opportunities They also enjoy higher levels of health and life satisfaction If we apply Maddi’s argument to university students, we expect those who exhibit psychological hardiness in learning will achieve academic success and will also enjoy a high QCL Moreover, we believe that the impact of psychological hardiness in learning may be moderated by students’ inherent learning motivation and by their perceptions of the payoff that business education will provide in their professional lives to come Indeed, the perception of the functional value of the business education may also moderate students’ learning motivation 2.2 Learning Motivation The concept of motivation is used ‘‘to explain what gets people going, keeps them going, and helps them finish tasks’’ (Pintrich 2003, 104) Motivation helps to establish and increase the quality of cognitive engagement, leading to success (Blumenfeld et al 2006) There are several models of motivation, in which the following three components are almost always present: expectancy, value, and affect Expectancy refers to one’s beliefs about one’s ability or skills to perform the task Value is used to express one’s beliefs about the importance, interest, and utility of the task The affective component is used to describe one’s feelings about the self or emotional reactions to the task (Pintrich 2003) Research has shown that in business education differences in ability and motivation to learn affect students’ learning performance and professors’ teaching effectiveness (e.g., Cole et al 2004; Diseth et al 2010; Noe 1986) Following Noe (1986), we define learning motivation as the willingness to attend and learn the material presented in a university program The measurement of learning motivation often focuses on individuals’ selfperceptions of efficacy, which are well-suited for predicting how well those individuals will perform (Cole et al 2004) While ability to learn defines what students can do, motivation to learn guides the decision-making process shaping the direction, focus, and level of effort that students apply to their learning activities (Cole et al 2004) Learning motivation enhances educational accomplishment because students with high motivation to learn develop more effective strategies for learning and exhibit greater commitment to knowledge and skill accumulation (Blumenfeld et al 2006; Nguyen and Nguyen 2010) Therefore, the level of satisfaction with their universities also improves This relationship is described by our first hypothesis H1 Learning motivation has a positive impact on students’ assessments of QCL 2.3 Psychological Hardiness in Learning Stress can generate psychological problems and can affect peoples’ effectiveness at working and studying To overcome challenges introduced by stress, people need to be psychologically hardy Psychological hardiness is a concept used to describe people’s commitment, control, and challenge in their lives (Maddi 2002; Britt et al 2001) Commitment refers to a ‘‘tendency to involve oneself in (rather than experience alienation from) whatever one is doing or encounters’’ Control is defined as a ‘‘tendency to feel and act as if one is influential (rather than helpless) in the face of the varied contingencies of life’’ Challenge is described as a ‘‘belief that change rather than stability is normal in life and 123 Psychological Hardiness in Learning and Quality of College Life 1095 that the anticipation of changes are interesting incentives to growth rather than threats to security’’ (Kobasa et al 1982, 169) Research in education indicates that study at university is one of many causes of stress (e.g., Cole et al 2004; Furr et al 2001) During their lives at university, students not only have to focus on completing educational activities such as readings, assignments, projects, and examinations, but they also have to manage personal matters such as finances, part time jobs, and social activities Psychological hardiness in learning plays an important role in the learning process Students with high levels of psychological hardiness in learning will spend their time and effort in studying They feel and act as if they are influential and welcome changes occurring during their lives at university Research shows that psychological hardiness assists people in enhancing their health and performance when coping with stressful conditions (Maddi 1999) Highly hardy attitudes also help people to convert stressful events into common problems to be solved (Bartone et al 2009; Maddi 1999; Sezgin 2009) or opportunities for growth and development (Kobasa and Puccetti 1983), thus improving performance and quality of life (Bartone et al 2009; Wiebe and McCallum 1986) Similarly, during their university lives, students often experience stressful circumstances Students with high psychological hardiness in learning will be able to control stress in their learning process This capability helps them transform the stress caused by learning into more fun or enjoyable university lives, developing and maintaining their motivation to what they need to When students have capabilities to overcome the pressure of learning in class, they will acknowledge the role of their professors and classmates in learning These relationships are embodied in the following hypotheses H2 Psychological hardiness in learning has a positive impact on QCL H3 Psychological hardiness in learning has a positive impact on learning motivation 2.4 Functional value of a business education Value is the key to human exchanges (e.g., Sandstrom et al 2008) People exchange something of value in return for something they value more Several conceptualizations of value are found in the literature, such as functional value, emotional value, and social value (see Ledden et al 2007 for a review) Students studying in universities exchange money, time, and entertainment for the contemporaneous pleasure of learning, and also for higher expected future earnings and a more satisfying future professional life This study focuses on the functional value perceived by business students when studying at university Functional value refers to students’ expectation that the business education at their chosen university will enhance their future employment or career goals and advancement (LeBlanc and Nguyen 1999; Ledden et al 2007) Value reinforces human beliefs that guide their behavior in their everyday lives (Kahle 1989) Students who perceive that studying at their university will give them higher value for their work and lives in the future will be more positive in their attitudes and behavior toward university life These students tend to see the pressure of learning as useful experience for their future lives Thus, for these students, learning at a university is interesting and worthwhile In other words, it appears that functional value of business education will strengthen the impacts of both learning motivation and psychological hardiness in learning on quality of college life These relationships lead us to our fourth and fifth hypotheses 123 1096 T D Nguyen et al H4 The impact of learning motivation on QCL is stronger for students who perceive higher functional value of their business education H5 The impact of psychological hardiness in learning on QCL is stronger for students who perceive higher functional value of their business education Methodology 3.1 Design and Pilot Study The research comprised two phases, a pilot study and a main survey, and was undertaken in Ho Chi Minh City, the principal business centre of Vietnam Although most of the measures of constructs are available in the literature, it is important to ensure they are appropriate for the context of this study (a transition market) by examining how students describe their learning motivation, quality of college life, and psychological hardiness in learning Thus, we began with a pilot study The questionnaire was initially prepared in English It was then translated into Vietnamese by an academic fluent in both languages because English is not well-understood by all students in this market Back-translation ensured the reliability of the translation The pilot study consisted of two steps: qualitative and quantitative First, we conducted a series of in-depth interviews with six business students at the Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City, purposefully selected on the basis of their academic quality (Coyne 1997) The sole purpose of this phase of the pilot study was to formulate questionnaires in Vietnamese that could support our objective of relating psychological hardiness in learning and learning motivation to students’ perceptions of the quality of college life Preliminary validation of the measures incorporated into the questionnaire was accomplished in the quantitative phase of the pilot study, in which we asked a convenience sample of 126 business students also at the Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City to complete the draft questionnaires This convenience sample consisted of students in upper-level courses; we enlisted them by visiting a selection of classes and inviting all students to participate Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of reliability and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were used to arrive at preliminary assessments of the scales, as described below 3.2 Measurement Four constructs were examined: quality of college life (QCL), psychological hardiness in learning, learning motivation, and functional value of business education QCL was measured by three items (from Q1 to Q3; Appendix 1—Table 3), each one of which was intended to reflect student perception of QCL (Sirgy et al 2007) While QCL could be decomposed into various components like students’ satisfaction with the faculty, facilities, student services, relationships with classmates, and extracurricular activities, we focus on the overall QCL construct Psychological hardiness in learning was measured by six items (from P1 to P6; Appendix 1—Table 3) and learning motivation was measured by five items (from L1 to L5; Appendix 1—Table 3) These scales were adapted from Cole et al (2006, 2004a, b) Finally, functional value of business education was measured by four items (from V1 to V4; Appendix 1—Table 3; Ledden et al 2007) Each item was measured on a 123 Psychological Hardiness in Learning and Quality of College Life 1097 seven-point Likert scale, anchored by (strongly disagree) and (strongly agree) The measures were refined via Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of reliability and EFA, using the data collected from 126 business students in the quantitative pilot study The results indicated that all scales satisfied the requirement for reliability: all Cronbach alphas of the scales were higher than 0.80 Note that one item (P5) measuring psychological hardiness (when necessary I am willing to study extra hard) was deleted due to its low item-total correlation (\0.30) The EFA results (principal components with varimax rotation) also indicate that all the scales satisfied the requirement for factor loadings ([0.50), total variance extracted ([50%) and the number of factors extracted Accordingly, these measures were used in the main survey 3.3 Main Survey The main survey was undertaken with the cooperation of a convenience sample of 1,024 undergraduate students at five selected universities in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong: the University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City Open University, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Ton Duc Thang University, and Binh Duong University With permission of the universities, we visited a selection of upper-level classes and invited all of the students to complete the questionnaires When the questionnaires were collected, we checked them and asked respondents to fill in any missing values The sample was comprised of 622 (60.8%) female students and 402 (39.3%) male students There were 605 (59.1%) students studying in public universities and 419 (40.9%) students studying in private universities Composite reliability (qc), average variance extracted (qvc), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to validate the measurement models and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the conceptual model and hypotheses Results 4.1 Measure Validation As mentioned above, the quality of the measures used in this study was assessed using composite reliability (qc), average variance extracted (qvc), and CFA The screening process showed that the data exhibited slight deviations from normality Nonetheless, all univariate kurtoses and skewnesses were in the acceptable range of [-1, 1] Note that all the scales were reflective measures Therefore, the maximum likelihood estimation method was used to estimate the parameters in the measurement and structural models (Muthen and Kaplan 1985) The saturated model (final measurement model) produced an acceptable fit to the data: v2[113] = 559.23 (p = 0.000); GFI = 0.940; CFI = 0.942; and RMSEA = 0.062 The factor loadings of all items were high and substantial (the lowest loading was 0.65), and all were highly significant (p \ 0.001) Appendix 1—Table shows the CFA loadings, means, SD, composite reliability, and average variance extracted of the scale items Furthermore, the average variances extracted of other scales were high (qvc [ 0.50), except for the scale measuring psychological hardness in learning (qvc = 0.47) These findings indicate that the scales used in this study were unidimensional and that convergent validity (within-method) was achieved The correlations (with standard errors) between constructs were significantly different from unity (Appendix 2—Table 4), which supports 123 1098 T D Nguyen et al cross-construct discriminant validity (Steenkamp and van Trijp 1991) Further, all the scales had high composite reliability (qc C 0.81) In sum, all the scales measuring the constructs used in this study satisfied the requirement for reliability and validity 4.2 Structural Models The SEM results show that the proposed model produced a good fit to the data: v2[62] = 323.21 (p = 0.000); GFI = 0.954; CFI = 0.949; and, RMSEA = 0.064 (Fig 2) In addition, no hypotheses were rejected Learning motivation had a statistically significant positive impact on quality of college life (b = 0.17, p \ 0.001) Consistent with hypotheses H2 and H3, psychological hardiness in learning had statistically significant positive impacts on both quality of college life (c = 0.38, p \ 0.001) and learning motivation (c = 0.62, p \ 0.001) Table shows the unstandardized estimates of the structural paths 4.3 Results of Multi-Group Analysis: Testing the Moderating Effects To test the moderating effects of functional value of business education perceived by students on the impacts of both psychological hardiness in learning and learning motivation on quality of college life, the multi-group analysis in SEM was employed It is noted that the scale measuring functional value of business education was unidimensional Therefore, a summated scale was formed for the measure of this construct Then, the median split was applied to divide the sample into two groups: students with low and high perceptions of functional value of business education Two stages of analysis were conducted First, these two samples were used to estimate the paths with no structural paths constrained (i.e., the path between psychological hardiness in learning and quality of college life and the path between learning motivation and quality of college life were set to be free) Next, constraints were imposed for these structural paths for both groups, i.e., they were set to be equal for both groups No constraints were set for the measurement models (partial invariance) The results of the multi-group analysis reveal that a significant difference was found between these two models: Dv2 = 7.5, Ddf = 2, p \ 0.05 A closer inspection of the L1 Fig Structural results (standardized estimate) 69 L2 L3 L4 L5 73 74 66 73 Learning 38 motivation 62* 17* Psychological hardiness in learning Quality of 25 college life 38* 70 68 65 71 68 P1 P2 P3 P4 P6 82 76 Q1 χ2[62] = 323.21 (p =.000) GFI =.954; CFI =.949; RMSEA =.064 *p