Development and validation of the student accommodation preferences instrument (SAPI)

Abstract

This study believes that one of the most ignored areas in studies pertaining to issues involving college and university students is their preferences toward their accommodation. The lack of scholarly works in this area of study might be due to paucity of theoretical foundation, relevant research instruments, as well as the unidentified underlying factors. The current study is an attempt to fill some part of this vacuum. It developed and examined the reliability and validity of the student accommodation preferences instrument (SAPI). The focus of the study was on campus accommodation at Universiti Sains Malaysia, and the SAPI was conceptualized on the basis of residence hall and home similarities in relation to eight main factors, namely visual, facility, amenity, location, personalization and flexibility in the room, social contact, security and privacy. To assess the construct validity of the instrument, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted using principal components analysis with varimax rotation, by which six factors were extracted. The privacy factor was deleted because of high cross-loading with other factors, whereas the facility and amenity factors were combined. In addition, the combination of personalization and flexibility with some other items formed a new factor, which was labeled convenience of student room. Consequently, the SAPI was formed with the following factors: facility and amenity, visual, convenience of student's room, location, social contact and security. The total variance explained was 46.55 per cent of the total variance, whereas the internal correlation consistency of measures that was assessed using Cronbach's α yielded a high reliability coefficient for factors from 0.73 to 0.92.