Cultivating the Research Environment to Enhance Quality of Life of Academics in An University Setting

Abstract

Background: Organizational climate is defined as a set of measurable properties of the work environment, perceived directly or indirectly by the people who live and work in this environment and assumed to influence their motivation and behavior. In a university setting, one of the most important organizational climate which affects academics’ behavior is research environment, which is defined as all those forces in the university education programs that reflect attitude toward research and science. This study aimed to examine the relationships between perceived research environment, research self-efficacy, and quality of life of academics. Method: We surveyed 100 academics from a state university in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, using measures of research environment, research self-efficacy, research burn-out, and life satisfaction. We examined whether the relationships between perceived research environment and research burn-out and life satisfaction was mediated by research self-efficacy. Results: Structural equation modelling demonstrated that a good support for a model that revealed significant ways by which individual and contextual variables were associated with quality of life. The measurement model, χ2(108) = 204.57, p < .001, χ2/df = 1.79, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .06 demonstrated good fit statistics, with factor loadings ranging from .40 to .85 (p < .001). The hypothesized structural model also showed good fit statistics, χ2(153) = 270.87, p < .001, χ2/df = 1.57, CFI = .95, RMSEA = .05. Perceived research environment was positively associated with research self-efficacy (β = .34, p < .001), research self-efficacy was associated negatively with research burn-out (β = -.33 p < .001), and research self-efficacy was associated positively with life satisfaction (β = .40 p < .001). Conclusion: The findings demonstrate that perceived research environment is an important variable that can have positive effects in developing research self-efficacy, enhancing life satisfaction, and reducing research burn-out. Keywords: perceived research environment, quality of life, research self-efficacy, stress, academics