Abstract:

There are many Ahiska students studying at universities in Turkey. Determining the psychological status and needs of these students is important for planning and implementing counseling and guidance services in higher education. “Life satisfaction” is among the important concepts in this context, since research findings show the possibility to obtain a number of positive psychological, social, physical, and academic outputs with an increase in one’s life satisfaction. In this regard, this study aimed to shed light on possible interventions on this subject by examining the relationship between life satisfaction of Ahiska students in Turkey with various demographic variables. With this purpose, data were collected from 307 students attending at 15 different Turkish state-funded universities. A Personal Information Form and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWL) were used in data collection. First, the validity and reliability of the SWLS that previously validated on Turkish university students were examined for Ahiska students attending at Turkish universities. Results revealed that the SWLS showed a good fit to the original 5 item model for Ahiska students, and has good internal consistency. There was no significant difference on the SWLS scores in terms of gender, the place of residence of the family, and the people with whom the students spent time together, except family members. Ahiska students who started schooling in Turkey at elementary level scored significantly higher on the SWLS than students started schooling at middle and high school. Finally, life satisfaction was not significantly correlated with length of stay in Turkey.

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