Moderators of the semester GPA-college satisfaction relation: A judgment approach

Objective college outcomes often explain only a small proportion of the variance in ratings of college satisfaction. A judgment approach (Okun & Weir, 1990) was used to test hypotheses pertaining to whether self-esteem and the timing of semester GPA recall moderate the effects of actual semester GPA on college satisfaction judgments. Analyses were based upon data from 177 freshmen enrolled in the spring of 1990 in sections of an introductory psychology course. Hierarchical multiple regression and multiple discriminant function analyses revealed that actual semester GPA interacted with both self-esteem and timing of semester GPA recall (p < .05). As expected, actual semester GPA was more strongly related to college satisfaction ratings when subjects (a) had high as opposed to moderate or low self-esteem, and (b) reported their semester GPA prior to, rather than after, responding to the college satisfaction item.