The Correlation between Academic Satisfaction and Academic Motivation During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Rehabilitation Students

The outbreak of Covid-19 virus has affected many issues, including the students’ education. Distancing from face-to-face educational environment, the disruption of leisure and social activities, and the separation from friends are some of the quarantine consequences, which can affect issues such as students’ academic satisfaction and motivation. Therefore, this study aimed was to examine the level of academic satisfaction and motivation during Covid-19 quarantine among rehabilitation students of Ahwaz University of Medical Sciences. This cross-sectional analytical study was performed on 180 Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences rehabilitation students with a convenient sampling method from 2020 August to July 2021. To evaluate the level of academic motivation, the Persian version of Harter’s academic motivation questionnaire was electronically used, and to assess the level of academic satisfaction, the questionnaire by Shakornia et al. (2014) was electronically used. To investigate the association between academic motivation and academic satisfaction, the chi-square independence test (or Fisher’s exact test in case of the sparsity of contingency table) was used. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22 software at a significant level of 0.05. The results showed that there is a significant correlation between academic satisfaction and intrinsic motivation (P=0.047), but there is no significant correlation between the academic satisfaction and extrinsic motivation (P=0.165) and academic satisfaction score and overall academic motivation (P=0.752). The correlation between academic satisfaction and field of study is significant (P=0.004). This study showed that despite the prevalence of Covid-19 and changes in educational methods during this period, the rate of academic motivation and academic satisfaction is almost high in most rehabilitation students of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. To investigate the strengths and weaknesses of education and the factors affecting the use of online education, students’ learning, and their academic motivation and satisfaction, it is recommended to examine the level of students’ academic motivation and satisfaction in different universities during the Covid-19 pandemic