Social cognitive predictors of academic adjustment and life satisfaction in Portuguese college students: A longitudinal analysis

A social cognitive model of well-being [Lent, R. W. (2004). Toward a unifying theoreticaland practical perspective on well-being and psychosocial adjustment.Journal of CounselingPsychology, 51,482–509.] was adapted to the context of academic adjustment and testedusing a longitudinal design. Participants were 252 students at a university in northernPortugal. They completed measures of academic self-efficacy, environmental support, goalprogress, and adjustment, along with global measures of positive affect and life satisfac-tion. Path analyses indicated that the model fit the data well overall. As expected, self-effi-cacy and environmental support were predictive of goal progress and academicadjustment, and the latter was predictive of students’ global life satisfaction. Self-efficacyand positive affect were found to be reciprocally related to one another. Contrary to expec-tations, goal progress did not contribute uniquely to the prediction of academic adjustmentor life satisfaction. We consider directions for future research applying the social cognitivemodel to satisfaction in, and adjustment to, educational and work settings.