Sustainability as a purpose in life among Dutch higher education students

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the purpose profile scales.

Scale	No. of items	Alpha	N	Mean	SD	Min	Max	Found	Actualization
Found	5	.854	514	4.71	1.21	1	7
Actualization	9	.747	462	4.96	0.87	2.22	7	.553**
Beyond-the-self	4	.845	432	3.26	0.84	1	5	.165**	.157**

Pearson’s correlation **p < .01

Table 2. Means and standard deviations of the dimensions in each cluster and in the ANOVAs.

Dimensions			Found		Actualization		Beyond-the-self
Profiles	N		M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Purposeful	142		5.86	0.56	5.76	0.48	3.55	0.53
	(33%)	z-scores	0.95	0.47	0.91	0.55	0.35	0.63
Dreamer	137		4.34	0.95	4.66	0.69	3.88	0.52
	(32%)	z-scores	−0.31	0.79	−0.35	0.68	0.74	0.62
Self-oriented	79		4.72	0.88	5.22	0.60	2.31	0.50
	(18%)	z-scores	0.004	0.73	0.30	0.69	−1.13	0.59
Disengaged	74		3.09	0.75	3.87	0.59	2.56	0.72
	(17%)	z-scores	−1.34	0.62	−1.24	0.67	−0.83	0.85
Total	432		4.69	1.24	4.99	0.87	3.26	0.84
			−0.01	1.03	0.03	1.00	0	1
ANOVA			F(3)=211.289, p < .001, ηp^2 = .597		F(3)=207.066, p < .001, ηp^2 = .592		F(3)=183.085, p < .001, ηp^2 = .562
Levene’s test			p < .001		p > .05		p < .05
Pairwise comparisons			Games-Howell p < .05		Tukey p < .001		Games-Howell p < .001. except disengaged and self-oriented p > .05

Figure 1. Purpose profiles among Dutch higher education students: the means in the figure are standardized (z-scores).

Table 3. Results of the qualitative content analysis.

Written statements	n	% of contents	% of all students
Content identified	352		64%
Happiness	216	61%	39%
Work	79	22%	15%
Sustainability	78	22%	14%
Self-actualization	63	18%	11.5%
Relationships	60	17%	11%
Economic	33	9%	6%
Health	26	7%	5%
Religion	3	1%	0.5%
Only self-orientation	217	62%	40%
Beyond-the-self (BTS) orientation (self + BTS or only BTS)	135	38%	25%
No response	178		32%
No purpose	19		3.5%
Students in total	549

Table 4. Written responses in the different profiles.

		Purposeful	Dreamer	Self-oriented	Disengaged
		n = 93 (65.5% of 142)	n = 97 (71% of 137)	n = 51 (65% of 79)	n = 49 (66% of 74)
		1.2 categories/student	1.09 categories/student	1.03 categories/student	1.04 categories/student
Content categories	1#	Happiness 57 (61%)	Happiness 51 (52%)	Happiness 37 (73%)	Happiness 32 (65%)
	2#	Work 28 (30%)	Work 26 (27%)	Self-actualization 9 (18%)	Self-actualization 10 (20%)
	3#	Self-actualization 25 (27%)	Sustainability 21 (22%)	Relations 9 (18%)	Relations 10 (20%)
	4#	Sustainability 23 (25%)	Relations 20 (21%)	Work 8 (16%)	Work 9 (18%)
Self-orientation		58 (41%)	53 (46%)	35 (44%)	29 (39%)
BTS orientation		35 (25%)	35 (25.5%)	16 (20%)	20 (27%)
No response		44 (31%)	38 (28%)	25 (32%)	21 (28%)
No purpose		5 (3.5%)	2 (1.5%)	3 (4%)	4 (5%)