The impact of learning motivation and psychological hardiness on students quality of life among economics students and technical students a case study of lac hong university

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HOCHIMINH CITY

----------------

NGUYEN THU HIEN

THE IMPACT OF LEARNING MOTIVATION AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL HARDINESS ON STUDENT’S QUALITY OF
LIFE AMONG ECONOMICS STUDENTS AND TECHNICAL
STUDENTS:
A CASE STUDY OF LAC HONG UNIVERSITY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS

HoChiMinh City – 2010


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
----------------

NGUYEN THU HIEN

THE IMPACT OF LEARNING MOTIVATION AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL HARDINESS ON STUDENT’S QUALITY OF
LIFE AMONG ECONOMICS STUDENTS AND TECHNICAL
STUDENTS:
A CASE STUDY OF LAC HONG UNIVERSITY

Major:

Major Code:

Business Administration
60.34.05

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS

Supervisor: DR. TRAN HA MINH QUAN

HoChiMinh City – 2010


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and deepest appreciation to my
research Supervisor, Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan for his intensive support, valuable
suggestions, guidance and encouragement during the course of my study.
My sincere thanks are also due to Prof. Nguyen Dinh Tho, for the valuable
time and the precious material.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Dinh Cong Khai, Dr. Vo
Xuan Vinh, Dr. Nguyen Van Ngai, Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang, members of the
proposal examination committee, for their valuable comments and suggestions.
I would like to thank many of my collegues and students at Lac Hong
university who helped me during the collection of the data.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of my teachers at Faculty
of Business Administration and Postgraduate Faculty, University of Econimics
Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my MBA course.
I would like to specially express my thanks to all of my classmates, my
friends from for their support and encouragement.
I would also like to avail this opportunity to express my appreciation to
Professor Nguyen Dong Phong, UEH Board of Directors for creating MBA

program in English.
Finally, I heartily dedicate this study to my beloved parents and my husband,
Duong who have encouraged and supported me during my study.

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ABSTRACT
Exploring the impact of learning motivation and psychological hardiness on
student’s quality of life is important to a university. For university, it can help
them understand their student’s pyschology. It will help university build plans to
stimulate their student’s learning effectiveness and improve university’s training
effectively. For students, they will find the important roles of these factors to
have a better learning attitude. This will help them increase their learning
motivation, their psychological hardiness, their quality of life and also improve
their learning effectiveness.
This research objective is to explore the factors including learning motivation
and psychological hardiness impacting on student’s quality of life. Then it tries
to find out whether there are the differences between these impacts among
economics students and technical students at Lac Hong University.
The process research will include two main steps: the pilot research and the
main research, the analytic unit is student. The pilot research will be qualitative
by making deeply interview with 7 students in order to check the content and
meaning of words using in the measurement scales. The main research will be
quantitative with 328 students through qualitative technique of making interview
directly. The reason is to test the measurement model, the research model and the
hypotheses.
In the context of Lac Hong university, the results show that: Firstly, learning
motivation is positively related to student quality of life. Secondly, psychological
hardiness is positively related to student’s quality of life. But psychological

hardiness has a higher influence on student’s quality of life than learning
motivation.
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Thirdly, the impact of learning motivation on student’s quality of life in
the economics student group is positive and sinificant but it’s not sinificant in the
technical student group. This difference has the statistical significance in the case
study of Lac Hong University.
Finally, the impact of psychological hardiness on student’s quality of life
is positive and sinificant in the economics student group and the technical
student group. However this different finding between two groups has not the
statistical significance in the context of Lac Hong University.
Keywords: student’s quality of life, learning motivation, psychological
hardiness, Lac Hong university

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgement................................................................................................ i
Abstract............................................................................................................... ii
Contents ..............................................................................................................iv
List of Tables ......................................................................................................vi
List of Figures ................................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................1
1.1 Research background......................................................................................1
1.2 Research objective..........................................................................................3
1.3 Research scope and research design ...............................................................3
1.4 Research structure ..........................................................................................4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH MODEL ..........5
2.1 Concepts.........................................................................................................5
2.1.1 Student’s quality of life...........................................................................5
2.1.2 Learning motivation ...............................................................................7
2.1.3 Psychological hardiness..........................................................................8
2.2 Research model ..............................................................................................9
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY...................................................................12
3.1 Research process ..........................................................................................12
3.2 The measurement scales ...............................................................................13
3.2.1 The student quality of life measurement ..............................................14
3.2.2 The student learning motivation measurement.....................................14
3.2.3 The student psychological hardiness measurement ..............................14
3.3 The pilot research .........................................................................................15

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3.4 The main research ........................................................................................16
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULT AND FINDING DISSCUSSION ......20
4.1 Descriptive statistics of sanple......................................................................20
4.1.1 Final sample ........................................................................................20
4.1.2 Characteristics of sample .....................................................................20
4.1.3 Descriptive statistics ............................................................................22
4.2 The construct measurement scale .................................................................23
4.3 The hypotheses assessment...........................................................................27
4.4 Finding disscussion ......................................................................................33
4.4.1 Question 1 ...........................................................................................33
4.4.2 Question 2 ...........................................................................................34
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.................................37
5.1 Concluding remarks .....................................................................................37

5.2 Implications of the research..........................................................................38
5.3 Limitations of the research and further research recommendation ................39
References..........................................................................................................41
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: The demographical status of participants...........................................16
Table 3.2: The main measurement scales ...........................................................17
Table 4.1: Learning group of respondents ..........................................................20
Table 4.2: Learning brand of respondents...........................................................21
Table 4.3: Sex of respondents.............................................................................21
Table 4.4: Age of respondents ............................................................................21
Table 4.5: Descriptive statistics..........................................................................22
Table 4.6: Cronbach’s alpha of student’s quality of life measurement................23
Table 4.7: Cronbach’s alpha of learning motivation measurement .....................23
Table 4.8: Cronbach’s alpha of psychological hardiness measurement...............24
Table 4.9: The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) result...................................25
Table 4.10: The final construct of measurement scale ........................................26
Table 4.11: The results of correlation analysis....................................................28
Table 4.12: The multi linear regression analysis on data of 328 responses .........28
Table 4.13: The multi linear regression analysis on data of group 1 (economics
students) ............................................................................................................30
Table 4.14: The multi linear regression analysis on data of group 2 (technical
students) ............................................................................................................30

Table 4.15: Conclusion about the hypotheses .....................................................32

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1: The research process ........................................................................12
Figure 4.1: The results of linear regression analysis between student’s quality of
life and the other factors.....................................................................................32

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research background
Due to globalization effect, the world is now smaller, the borders
between nations seem to be closer to each other. People can do business more
convenient, easier to get information, or enjoy modern education from many
developed countries, etc. In Viet nam, when we become an official member of
World Trade Organization (WTO), it brings us many opportunities to expand
relationships with other countries, exporters can expand their markets, people
enjoy more variety of goods, enjoy more chances to study, etc, but it aslo
brings us many challenges, for example more competitors, more knowledge
needed to be updated. Especially, for educational field, it has to deal with a
very important role in training and providing the human resource that must be
useful for the process of cooporation with foreign partners and ready to catch
up with further global changes. In this trend, many Vietnamese universities
concentrate on finding the methods to improve its quality of training.

There are many researches about teaching and learning in the world.
The objective is to find their own ways to improve the effectiveness of
student’s learning and the quality of training. One trend is to focus on learning
motivation and student’s quality of life. Reason for this is motivation, study
behaviour, student’s quality of life impacting on the training quality and the
perceived result of student during the course (Cole et al. 2004; Rowold 2007,
cited in Tho et al. 2009).
About learning motivation, if an individual is motivated, he will try
hard to complete his task and work hard to achieve goals. In otherwise, a
person who is not motivated will not try, will not work hard, or will show

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behaviours that destroys the outcome of the situation (Eggen and Kauchak
1999).
In order to overcome the pressures or unexpected problems,
psychological hardiness helps people deal with their pressures in life (Maddi
1999a, cited in Tho et al. 2009) or make them become opportunities of
development (Kobasa & Puccetti 1983, cited in Tho et al. 2009).
About student’s quality of life, there are two trends. The first one is
focusing on the relationship between student’s quality of life and the other
factors or the factors impacting on student’s quality of life. The second one is
focusing on measuring the student’s quality of life (Sirgy et al. 2007, cited in
Tho et al. 2009).
In summary, our universities is concentrating on how to improve its
training quality to catch up with the labor market demand. In Viet nam,
currently there aren’t many researches about student’s pyschology, especially
student’s quality of life and other factors which have related to it such as
learning motivation, psychological hardiness. Meanwhile these studies will

provide universities basic information about student’s pyschology, which can
be very useful for building the strategies to stimulate student’s learning
effectiveness and the training effectiveness. Consequently, the related studies
in this field is very neccesary. From this reason, we realizes that it is
necessary to conduct such a research related to student’s psychology at Lac
Hong university such as: the impact of learning motivation, psychological
hardiness on student’s quality of life to provide evidence about the
relationship between them, from that university can make suitable plans in
order to help their students to increase their quality of life during their course
or stimulate student’s learning effectiveness and its training effectiveness. In
addition, this research will try to answer whether there are differences of the

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impact of learning motivation on student’s quality of life if compared the
economics student group with the technical student group; whether there are
differences of the impact of psychological hardiness on student’s quality of
life if compared the economics student group with the technical student
group.
1.2 Research objective
This research objective is to explore the impact of learning motivation,
psychological hardiness on student’s quality of life among economics
students and technical students at Lac Hong University, in particularly, this
will answer the following questions:
Question 1: Do learning motivation and psychological hardiness
impact on student’s quality of life?
Question 2: Are there differences of the impact of learning motivation
and psychological hardiness on student’s quality of life if compared the
economics student group with the technical student group?

This research will provide some evidence about the role of learning
motivation, psychological hardiness, student’s quality of life. It helps
university build plans to stimulate student’s learning effectiveness and
improve university’s training effectiveness. For students, they will find the
important roles of these factors to have a better learning attitudes. It will help
them increase their learning motivation, their psychological hardiness, their
quality of life and also improve their learning effectiveness.
1.3 Research scope and research design
This research is conducted at Dong Nai province. The research object is
technical students and economics students of Lac Hong university.
The process research will include two main steps: the pilot research and
the main research, the analytic unit is student.

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The pilot research will be qualitative by making deeply interview with
7 students in order to check the content and the meaning of words using in the
measurement scales.
The main research will be quantitative with 328 economics students
and technical students through qualitative technique of making interview
directly. The reason is to test the measurement model, research model and the
hypotheses.
After collecting data, the measurement scales will be verified the
reliability by Cronback alpha ratio, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to
refine the measurement scales. Finally, the hypotheses will be tested by using
the multi-linear regression analysis.
1.4 Research structure
The structure of this research will include 5 chapters.
Chapter 1: Introduction will introduce about research background, research

objective and research meaning, research scope and research design, research
structure.
Chapter 2: Literature review will provide a literature reiview of student’s
quality of life, learning motivation, psychological hardiness.
Chapter 3: Methodology will present methodology that used in the research,
this includes research methodology design, research procedures, measurement
scales.
Chapter 4: Research results will describe sampling, processing data, presents
analyzing the data collected, and finding disscussion.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and implication present conclusions and implications
from the research project.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH MODEL

This chapter is to focus on introducing the literature review in order to
establish research model. This chapter will include two parts. The first one
will introduce the literature review of student’s quality of life and learning
motivation, psychological hardiness. The second one will suggest the research
model and the hypotheses about the impact of learning motivation,
psychological hardiness on student’s quality of life.
2.1 Concepts
2.1.1 Student’s quality of life
The quality of life is a multi-direction definition and complication that
is measured by many different ways (Vaez et al. 2004).
The quality of student life can be interpretated in different meaningful
ways and evaluative factors (Nussbaum and Sen 1993). These factors can

include subjective and conscious experience of satisfaction, happiness,
excellence, hope, optimism and enjoyment that accompany this period of
adolescence (Staats et al. 1995). The quality of student life can be affected by
health behaviours, emotional well-being, sociocultural and political issues
(Disch et al. 1997). It has also been suggested that students are related with
current financial situation and future career goals and how the earning of a
college degree will enhance/suppress their future quality of life (Sax 1996).
Student’s quality of life can be definited as the fully-satisfied level of student
during the course at university (Sirgy et al. 2007, cited in Tho et al. 2009).
The student fully-satisfied level during the course is evaluated basing on their
satisfaction about teachers, equipments for learning, university’s treatment,
relationship with friends, and extra activities.

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The study about student’s quality of life can be divided in two trends.
The first trend is about the factors impacting on student’s quality of life. The
second trend is about measuring the student’s quality of life (Sirgy et al. 2007,
cited in Tho et al. 2009).
There are many researches about the factors which have related with
student’s quality of life. For example of Cha (2003) (cited in Tho et al. 2009)
identifies that there is a positive relationship between student’s life
satisfaction level with the types of personality such as optimism, self-respect,
etc. The study of Vaez et al. (2004) find out that there is a relationship
between health status and student’s quality of life. In Viet Nam, the study of
Tho et al. (2009) with econonics students of public universities and private
universities. The first result of this study shows that learning motivation is not
a factor which gets student’s quality of life increased, but learning motivation
is positively related to student’s quality of life at the public universities and it

is negative with private universities. The seconds is that the psychological
hardiness is positively related to student’s quality of life and learning
motivation. In addition, the impact of psychological hardiness on student’s
quality of life at public universities is less than at private universities. The
impact of psychological hardiness on learning motivation at public
universities is less than at private universities. The thirds is that learning value
is positively related to psychological hardiness, learning motivation and
student’s quality of life. The result aslo shows that the impact of learning
value on psychological hardiness at public universities is less than at private
universities. However, the impact of learning value on learning motivation is
not different between students of public universities and private universities.
And the difference of the impact of learning value on student’s quality of life
at public universities and private universities is not significant.

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This study will examine the impact of learning motivation and
psychological hardiness on student’s quality of life.
2.1.2 Learning motivation
Motivation is a complicated concept that is difficult to measure or
recognize in any meaningful way (Ball 1977). It can be possible to observe
behaviour and from that to reason an individual’s motivation but it is never
possible for an observer to be certain. Motivation is a deeply personal concept
(Elton 1996).
As presented, motivation is considered as the drive on one’s thoughts
and actions. Motivation is a key that simulates to try hard to reach to the goals
(Lumsdem 1994). Example, for some students, they tend to be highly
motivated simply because they do not want to fail; otherwise someone tends
to lose their motivation basing on what they value (Mowl 1996).

The definition of motivation is used to explain why human acts and
maintains their activities and help them to complete their tasks (Pintrich 2003,
cited in Tho et al. 2009). According to Noe (1986) (cited in Tho et al. 2009),
learning motivation is defined as a desire to join and bear the contents of a
subject or the training program.
Fallows and Ahmet (1999) propose reasons explain why a student
might be interested in learning: the learner’s desire to please the teachers;
perceived need to understand the material presented; each learner’s degree of
interest in the subject material; the personal philosophical values and beliefs
of the learner; the learner’s attitudes to the materials being delivered; the
academic and career aspirations of the learner; incentives and rewards which
are expected to accrue from their learning.
And Entwistle (1998) gives three more generic types of motivation that
reason for valuing learning: extrinsic – the desire to finish the course for some

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expected reward; intrinsic – begining from their interest in a subject;
achievement – the desire to ‘perform well’ and sometimes perform better than
others.
2.1.3 Psychological hardiness
Pychological hardiness represents a single latent variable. Hardiness
comprises of commitment, control and challenge (Canava et al. 2001, cited in
Tho et al. 2009). Commitment is shown out by using all mind and energy to
work or to deal with a problem. Control shows a trend to bear and behave
actively to deal with unexpected events. Challenge displays the hope of
changes in life. Changes are attractive ones, they are not a risk of
development (Kobasa et al. 1982, cited in Tho et al. 2009). Therefore, in life,
people often has to face with many stressful events or problems, in order to

overcome them, people needs to get characteristic of hardiness.
In learning situation, researchers find out that learning is one of the
most stressful activities to university students (Cole et al. 2004; Furr et al.
2001, cited in Tho et al. 2009). According to Britt et al. (2001) and Kobasa et
al. (1982), cited in Tho et al. 2009), psychological hardiness is displayed
through students who use all their minds and energy (commitment), bear and
behave actively (control) and accept changes (challenge) during their course
at university. During the course, students often not only have to deal with
their learning tasks such as exams, projects, readings, excercies, etc, but also
with other personal factors such as finance, part-time job, social activities, etc.
Therefore, psychological hardiness plays an important role to help them in
order to solve their stressful events and problems during their course at
university (Tho et al. 2009).
In addition, Maddi (1999a) (cited in Tho et al. 2009) mentions that
psychological hardiness helps people improve their work effectiveness and

8


health when dealing with their stressful events at work. Psychological
hardiness also helps people deal with their pressures in life (Maddi 1999a,
cited in Tho et al. 2009) or make them become opportunities of development
(Kobasa & Puccetti 1983, cited in Tho et al. 2009). Finaly, psychological
hardiness helps people deal with their stressful events or problems, make
them become sovable matters or become good opportunities, make work
effective, or help them improve their quality of life. (Wiebe & McCallum
1986, cited in Tho et al. 2009).
2.2 Research model

Learning

motivation
+H1

Student’s
quality of life
+H2
Psychological
hardiness

As we known, motivation is what can stimulate person to try hard or
use their energy to show positive behaviour in order to achieve their learning
or work goals. Whether, a person can perform activities with full energy or
not often depends on how much that person is willing to do. If there is a
motivation that makes a person satisfied, it will cause him/her to contribute
more attention to learn and work. Also, if humans have the feeling of
satisfaction, they will tend to contribute their creative thinking to their work
and learning. Therefore, a research of motivations is important to an

9


educational organization (Ansongkhram 2002). Causes affecting motivation
can be classified differently according to age, status and different
environments including support from families. It can be seen that causes
affecting these motivations are all the matter of the students’ quality of life.
Hypothesis 1: Learning motivation is positively related to student’s
quality of life.
Based on the literature review presented, in learning situation, students
often have to face with stressors during their course. However, students
having a high psychological hardiness will help them to control their

problems better. It helps students alter stressful events become interesting
ones in their quality of life at university, or maintain and develop their
motivation in learning. When students overcome their learning stressors by
solving their learning excercies, projects, exams, they experience about the
role of teachers, the role of learning with other classmates.
Hypothesis 2: Psychological hardiness is positively related to student’s
quality of life.
In addition, in the research of Tho (2009) with economics students of
public unversities and private universities. The results of this study showed
that there are different results about the relationship between student’s quality
of life and other factors if compared public unversities with private
universities. For students who learn different subjects, the results of the
relationship between student’s quality of life and others factors might be
different which caused by some differences. For example between technical
students and economics students, there are some different factors as followed:
teachers’ method, supported equipments during their their learning, technical
students’ male rate is often higher than economics students, etc. Therefore
this research expects to answer whether there are differences of the impact of

10


learning motivation on student’s quality of life between the economics student
group and the technical student group; whether there are differences of the
impact of psychological hardiness on student’s quality of life between the
economics student group and the technical student group.
Hypothesis 3: Learning motivation is positively related to student’s
quality of life in the economics student group.
Hypothesis 4: Learning motivation is positively related to student’s
quality of life in the technical student group.

Hypothesis 5: Psychological hardiness is positively related to student’s
quality of life in the economics student group.
Hypothesis 6: Psychological hardiness is positively related to student’s
quality of life in the technical student group.

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CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY

Chapter 3 will provide methodology that uses to examine the
measurement scales of concepts and verify research model and hypotheses
given.
3.1 Research process
This research process included 2 phases. The first phase of the pilot
research and the second phase of the main research. The pilot research was
conducted by using the qualitative method. The main research used the
quantitative method. The unit of analysis is student. The object is Lac Hong
university technical and economics students.
Figure 3.1: The research process
LITERATURE REVIEW
(Student’s quality of life, Learning motivation, psychological hardiness,
Model, Hypotheses)

THE PILOT RESEARCH USING THE INNITIAL
MEASUREMENT SCALES

The innitial
measurement

scales

The main
measurement
scales

(Qualitative research: n =7)

THE MAIN RESEARCH USING THE MAIN
MEASUREMENT SCALES

(Quantitative: n=328)

WRITING REPORT

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Reliability analysis,
Exploratory Factor
Analysis (EFA), Linear
regression analysis


The pilot research was conducted in August 2010 that used the
qualitative method by making deeply interview with 7 students in order to
check the content and meaning of words which were used in the measurement
scales.
After the pilot research, the main research was based on quantitative
method which was conducted with 328 students through qualitative technique
of making interview directly. The reason was to verify the measurement

model, research model and test the hypotheses. The colletected data was
tested by Reliability analysis (Delete low-item total correlation item < 0.30)
and items made Cronback alpha <0.60), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
(Deleted items with low loading factor < 0.50). The hypotheses were tested
by the multi-linear regression with Enter method.
3.2 The measurement scales
The definitions of student’s quality of life measurement, learning
motivation measurement and psychological hardiness measurement had been
available in the world, and aslo had been verified in many researches at
different nations. The measurement scales of student’s quality of life (Sirgy et
al. 2007, cited in Tho et al. 2009), learning motivation (Cole et al. 2004, cited
in Tho et al. 2009), and psychological hardiness (Cole et al. 2004, cited in
Tho et al. 2009) were used in this research, which had been inheritted by Tho
et al. (2009). This research would apply these measurement scales in the
current envirnoment of Lac Hong university in Viet Nam. In this research,
these measurement scales had been translated into English basing on the
Vietnamese measurement scales presented in Tho et al. (2009). The
measurement scales of this research were measured basing on the Likert 5
point, with 1: fully – againsted; 5: fully-agreed.

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3.2.1 The student’s quality of life measurement
This value was measured basing on the measure of student’s quality of
life of Sirgy et al. (2007) (cited in Tho et al. 2009). It included 6 observed
variables: coded from Q1 to Q6.
Q1: I’m very pleased with the teaching of teachers at this university
Q2: I’m very pleased with the material facilities and equipments at this
university

Q3: I’m very pleased with the treatment to students at this university
Q4: I’m very pleased with the extra – activities of the course at this
university
Q5: I’m very pleased with relationship with my classmates when study
at this university
Q6: In generally, my learning quality of life is very high at this
university
3.2.2 The learning motivation measurement
This measure was based on the measure of learning motivation of (Cole
et al. 2004, cited in Tho et al. 2009). It included 5 observed variables, coded
from M1 to M5.
M1: I try my best to invest into my learning
M2: I spend most of time on this subject
M3: Investment into this subject is my first priority
M4: I use all of my energy to learn this subject
M5: In generally, my learning motivation with this subject is very high
3.2.3 The psychological hardiness measurement
This measure was based on the measure of psychological hardiness of
Cole et al. 2004) (cited in Tho et al. 2009). It included 7 observed variables,

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they displayed bearing and controlling ability of pressures during their course
at university, they were coded from H1 to H7.
H1: Despite all changes, I always commit to complete my course at
university
H2: When necessary, I’m willing to work hard in order to reach
learning goals
H3: When I have problems with my learning, I can always solve them

H4: I can always control all difficulties happening to me during the
course
H5: Iam always interested in learning challenges during the course
H6: I can always deal with unexpected problems during the course
H7: In generally, I have high ability to bear pressures during the course
3.3 The pilot research
As we introduced, the measurement scales of concepts in this research
had been tested at many developed countries. Therefore, it was considered
that the pilot survey would be useful in order to test the content and the
meaning of words, or if necessary modify measurement scales to be suitable
with the context of Lac Hong university in Viet Nam.
These measurement scales had been already translated into Vietnamese
in the study of Tho et al. (2009). This research used this translation in the
questionnaire in order to conduct survey. The questionaire in Vietnamese was
presented in the appendix 1.
The pilot survey was conducted at Lac Hong university using the
qualitative method by directly interviewing with 7 independent students
(including 4 economics students and 3 technical students) in order to test the
words using in the measurement scales (unable to understand, difficult to
answer or not, etc).

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In conclusion, the pilot survey results would help to eliminate possible
weaknesses and flaws, and create the main questionare that would be used in
the main research.
Table 3.1: The demographical status of participants
Male

Female

Economics students

2

2

Technial students

2

1

The pilot research result
The students who were deeply interviewed about the meaning and the
content of the measurement scales of student’s quality of life, learning
motivation and psychological hardiness, they all understood the content and
the meaning of each statement of the measurement scales. Therefore, these
measurement scales were used in the main research.
3.4 The main research
The main research was conducted by quantitative method with 328
technical students and economics students through qualitative technique of
making interview directly.
The collected data from the main research was analysed by using SPSS
16 software (Descriptive Statistics, Reliability analysis, Correlation analysis,
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), the multi-linear regression analysis). The
reason was to verify the measurement model, research model and test the
hypotheses.

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