Abstract:

The mass expansion of higher education in Ethiopia has increased the number and diversity of first-year students, creating new challenges for supporting their adjustment and academic success. Personality traits and students’ sense of belonging to the university are known to play an important role in engagement, persistence, and well-being, yet institutions have lacked brief, culturally appropriate tools to assess these constructs in Amharic. This study therefore adapted and evaluated two short instruments—the 30-item Big Five Inventory–2–Short Form (BFI-2-S) and the 20-item University Belongingness Questionnaire (UBQ)—among Ethiopian undergraduates, with a focus on their practical usefulness in educational settings. Data were collected from 169 first-year students from social science and natural science programs at Wollo University. After a translation–back-translation procedure and expert review, students completed the Amharic versions of the BFI-2-S and UBQ. The UBQ showed good internal consistency (α = 0.878 for the total scale; Affiliation α = 0.791, Support α = 0.778, Relations α = 0.722). The BFI-2-S also demonstrated high reliability (α = 0.874 for the total scale), with domain alphas of Openness α = 0.724, Conscientiousness α = 0.719, Extraversion α = 0.839, Agreeableness α = 0.785, and Neuroticism α = 0.761. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the BFI-2-S yielded χ²/df = 2.187, RMSEA = 0.084, CFI = 0.764, and GFI = 0.748, indicating only partial support for the original structure, likely due in part to cultural influences and the modest sample size. In contrast, the UBQ structure showed a more acceptable fit (χ²/df = 2.017, RMSEA = 0.078, GFI = 0.830, CFI = 0.824), with strong and statistically significant factor loadings. Despite some limitations, the findings suggest that these two brief Amharic instruments can already provide educators and counsellors with useful information about students’ personality profiles and their feelings of affiliation, support, and inclusion at university. Such information can be used to design orientation programs, mentoring and counselling services, and early interventions for at-risk students (for example, those reporting low belongingness or personality profiles associated with higher adjustment difficulties). More broadly, the study illustrates how concise, language-appropriate measures can contribute to evidence-based student support systems in non-Western higher education contexts.

Keywords:

University belongingness, personality traits, first-year students, Ethiopian higher education, Amharic instruments, student adjustment.