Quality of Life and Value Orientation of University Students in Middle-Adulthood

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Every person needs to define their own parameters of values and quality of life as there is a range of life circumstances and objective or subjective factors which force individuals to make decisions and select from available solutions depending on their personalities and other determinants. Currently, these notions have been broadly discussed and the authors of the presented study believe, that in the context of value orientation and life quality, there are new interactions, correlations and new truth to be revealed. Methods: The presented research aimed to find out about the respondents’ perception of their quality of life and value orientation using WHOQOLBREF 1996 questionnaire and Vonkomer’s HO-PO-MO questionnaire and unrevealing the relations between them. The research sample consisted of 300 in their middle-adulthood involved in external university study programs. Results: The results presented in this study indicate that from the aspect of the subjective perception of the quality of life by individuals, external factors such as age or place of residence are not decisive. The most important finding of the research is that, as well as value orientation focusing on the values of knowledge, education and economic aspects leads to a better quality of life; a better quality of life is determined by a value orientation focused on the fields of knowledge, education and economic values. Discussion: The attention of professionals from various fields of science and their research activities is given mostly to the relatively small population of young generation, the process of the creation of their value orientation and thus, their subjective quality of life. The presented study is focused on productive generation of middle-aged adults involved in tertiary education, which has experienced several massive changes in the society and received primary and secondary education in an educational context different from the present situation. Limitations: The conducted research into the respondents’ quality of life is limited by the applied methods as it focuses on four basic areas of quality of life and quantitative methods are used. The advantages of this approach lie in exactly defined fields and quantitative data which enable comparison. One of its shortcomings is that it does not find out anything about the qualitative, dynamic aspects of the respondents’ reflections about their own quality of life. Conclusion: The findings show that quality of mental life correlates with educational value orientation as well as quality of social relationships with social value orientation. It can be stated that, as well as value orientation focusing on the values of knowledge, education and economic aspects leads to a better quality of life; a better quality of life is determined by a value orientation focused on the fields of knowledge, education and economic values.