Social and scholar integration and students satisfaction: the mediating role of career adaptability

In the educational research, most of studies considered the quality of students life, focusing on several variables (Soresi et al., 2012; Tomyn and Cummins, 2011). Despite of it, there isn't evidence about the adaptability to future career as a mediator between integration at school and students satisfaction. This paper contributes to literature in two ways: first it explores the role of career adaptability as a mediator, and this represents an innovative topic because the concept and the operationalization of the career adaptability are recently developed, secondly, it can enhance the knowledge about educational research on career adaptability. This knowledge can be used by teachers and practitioners to improve promotion and prevention focus as useful strategies in scholar retention. The aim of the study is to explore the mediating role of Career adaptability on the relationship between scholar and social integration and students satisfaction, which is considered a positive outcome related to learning achievement, scholar performance and educational progress. Participants were 407 students from public high schools in the South of Italy. Findings evidenced that Career Adaptability mediated the relationship between the social integration but not scholar integration,and students overall satisfaction. Implications for educational practice and limitations of the study are discussed.