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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Educational Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1663142

How Perceived Goal Attainment Shapes Student Satisfaction: The Chain Mediating Roles of Competence Acquisition, Learning, and Infrastructure

Provisionally accepted
  • East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction: Student satisfaction is a key indicator of higher education quality, yet the mechanisms linking students’ perceived goal attainment to their overall satisfaction remain underexplored. While expectancy–disconfirmation theory (EDT) has traditionally emphasized the gap between expected and actual outcomes, limited research has examined goal attainment as a personal cognitive benchmark within this framework. Drawing on EDT and self-determination theory, this study aimed to investigate how perceived goal attainment influences student satisfaction through the mediating roles of perceived competence acquisition and perceptions of learning and campus life. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 2,981 students from 13 Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). Participants completed validated scales measuring perceived goal attainment, competence acquisition, curriculum and learning, infrastructure and daily life, and satisfaction. Covariates included gender, grade, institution type, and regional development level. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) were used to test simple and chain mediation models. Results: Perceived goal attainment was positively correlated with satisfaction (r = 0.66, p < 0.001), competence acquisition (r = 0.66, p < 0.001), curriculum and learning (r = 0.48, p < 0.001), and infrastructure and daily life (r = 0.57, p < 0.001). In the model including curriculum and learning, the chain mediation path—Perceived Goal Attainment → Perceived Competence Acquisition → Curriculum and Learning → Student Satisfaction—was significant, with individual mediators also exerting partial effects. The total effect was 0.719, with 85.12% direct and 14.88% indirect effect (10.29% via competence, 1.67% via curriculum, 2.92% sequentially). In the model including infrastructure, the chained mediation pathway Perceived Goal Attainment → Perceived Competence Acquisition → Infrastructure and Daily Life → Student Satisfaction was also significant, with a 78.16% direct effect and 21.84% indirect effect (9.18% via competence, 8.62% via infrastructure, 4.03% sequentially). Conclusion: Perceived goal attainment influences student satisfaction both directly and indirectly via competence acquisition and improvements in academic and daily life experiences. By integrating EDT, SDT, and a chain mediation framework, the study highlights competence as a core psychological mechanism. HEIs should prioritize strategies that foster students’ sense of competence while optimizing curriculum and campus environments to enhance satisfaction and engagement.

Keywords: student satisfaction, Perceived Goal Attainment, Expectancy–Disconfirmation Theory, Chain mediation model, higher education in China

Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 19 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yan, Qian and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mengting Qian, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

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