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Quality of working life has been defined as the part of overall quality of life that is influenced by work. We developed a mediation model where home-work interface, job and career satisfaction, control at work, and working conditions are considered to be positively related to employee commitment and to the absence of stress at work. These two variables were ultimately related to general well-being. We considered possible differences between workers with different contract types (permanent vs. temporary), as well as the roles of tenure and average position of the University in the UK rankings. Quantitative survey data from 510 academics and researchers working in 8 British Universities were analysed via a multi-group analysis with structural equation modelling. Our model presented a good fit, and a bootstrapping analysis confirmed the significance of indirect effects. Significant differences were found between permanent and temporary workers and striking results were found regarding tenure.

Previous research suggests that higher education employees experience comparatively high levels of job stress. A range of instruments, both generic and job-specific, has been used to measure stressors and strains in this occupational context. The Work-related Quality of Life (WRQoL) scale is a measure designed to capture perceptions of the working environment and employees' responses to them. This study explores the factor structure of the WRQoL scale for higher education employees. Survey data were collected from workers in four higher education institutions in the UK (n = 2136). Confirmatory factor analysis methods were used to investigate the explanatory power of the scale using a six-factor model (job and career satisfaction, general well-being, home-work interface, stress at work, control at work and working conditions). A first-order confirmatory factor analysis model fitted the data well, whilst a second-order model produced an acceptable fit. Levels of WRQoL for each factor are consistent with those found in other studies of academic employees. Overall, higher education employees in the sample are dissatisfied with their jobs and careers, are generally dissatisfied with working conditions and control at work and report they are stressed at work. Results provide evidence to support the use of the WRQoL psychometric instrument as both a multidimensional and uni-dimensional measure to assess the quality of working life of employees in higher education. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

Given that the higher-level goals or ‘orientations’ of second language learners impact their motivation to learn, they are of consequent interest to researchers. Once conceptualized simply as either ‘integrative’ or ‘instrumental’, these orientations are increasingly understood to be more complex, particularly since the L2 in question is often English; as a global lingua franca, English is extending its range of functions around the world, while also becoming ‘deterritorialized’. In contexts such as Japan and Pakistan, the latter the setting for this study, new orientations have recently been identified. However, research methods employed have not always included factor analytic techniques, which are particularly valuable for finding underlying structures in complex data. 500 postgraduates in a public university in North-Western Pakistan were surveyed and their responses subjected to factor analysis. 11 factors were identified: ‘Education-Prestige’, ‘Identification’, ‘Receptive L2 Use for Non-Professional Purposes’, ‘Further Study-Work Abroad’, ‘Media-Instrumental’, ‘Travel-Friendship’, ‘Extrinsic-Ideal L2 Self’, ‘Business’, ‘National Interest’, ‘Intrinsic’, ‘International Posture and Learning L2 for Local Purposes’. Findings confirm the newly-discovered ‘National Interest’ orientation in this context and point towards the emergence of an ‘L2 Indigenous Integrative’ orientation that relates to using L2 for local purposes. Theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]