Academic Satisfaction Level and Academic Achievement among Students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences: Academic Year 2015-2016

Background: Academic satisfaction is considered one of the most important factors affecting academic achievement among students. The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between academic satisfaction and academic achievement among students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted with 346 student participants using stratified random sampling. The research instrument included the Student Academic Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Academic Performance Rating Scale, and student grade point average (GPA). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. A 0.05 significance level was used for statistical tests.

Results: The mean score of academic satisfaction among students was 50.7 ± 9.8 and the academic satisfaction level was moderate in 46.2% of the students. Comparing the academic satisfaction level in different fields of study, students in health (58.5%), nursing (67.5%), and paramedics (51.1%) reported a moderate satisfaction level and students in midwifery (84.2%), pharmacology (53.5%), medicine (69.3%), and dentistry (55.5%) recorded a high satisfaction level (P < 0.05). There was also a significant and positive correlation between academic satisfaction and academic achievement (P = 0.001, r = 0.02).

Conclusion: Academic satisfaction among the 46.2% students that reported a moderate level was far from the ideal level. The relationship between academic satisfaction and academic achievement also indicated that creating motivation among students and increasing their levels of satisfaction could provide the grounds for academic achievement among them as much as possible.