The Effect of Freshmen’s Educational Fairness on Class Satisfaction, Competency Improvement Expectations, and University Involvement

This study aims to analyze the impact of perceived educational fairness on their university involvement. Using organizational justice theory, the study examines the structural relationships between freshmen’s perceived educational fairness, class satisfaction, expectations for competency improvement, and university involvement. The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling with data from the 2023 National Assessment of Student Engagement in Learning(NASEL), conducted by the Korean Educational Development Institute. The findings are as follows: First, the three dimensions of perceived educational fairness—distributive fairness, procedural fairness, and interactional fairness—positively influence freshmen’s class satisfaction. Second, among these dimensions, procedural fairness positively affects freshmen’s expectations for competency improvement, whereas distributive fairness has a negative impact on these expectations. Third, procedural fairness and interactional fairness indirectly have a positive impact on university involvement, while distributive fairness has a negative impact on university involvement. Based on these results, implications for research on college student dropout and insights into freshman adaptation and academic management at universities were presented.