TPC-Journal-V2-Issue3

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 3 181 communities, namely higher administrators, academics, administrative officers, support staff, postgraduates and undergraduates. Such data are vital in helping HEIs keep track of staff and students’ development during higher education transformation. Based on the findings, strategic planning at the institutional level can be implemented accordingly. To fill in the literature gap, this study aims to identify the lifestyle of the university community as a whole and also describe the lifestyle adopted by the different categories of the community. The research objectives were (1) to identify the lifestyle of the university community, and to (2) describe the lifestyle of administrators, academics, administrative officers, support staff, postgraduates and undergraduates. Methodology An exploratory case study method was used to conduct the investigation at a research-intensive university in Malaysia. Based on a list of staff and students at this institution, 520 targeted participants were randomly chosen as shown in Table 1. Official invitation letters, general information about the research and consent forms were sent out to all targeted participants. Table 1 Participants in the Study Categories Targeted Participants F % Higher Administrators 40 39 11.27 Academic Staff 100 59 17.05 Administrative Officers 100 38 10.98 Support Staff 100 68 19.65 Postgraduate Students 100 80 23.12 Undergraduate Students 100 62 17.91 Total 520 346 100.00 A total of 346 respondents voluntarily agreed to participate in this study; 39 higher administrators, 59 academic staff, 38 administrative officers, 68 support staff, 80 postgraduate students and 62 undergraduate students. The Behavioral Management Information System (BeMIS), an online assessment and reporting tool, was used as the instrument to identify the lifestyle of the university community. The underlying instrument includes the Adjective Check List (ACL), which comprises of 300 adjectives commonly used to describe traits that a person subscribed to and these traits can be grouped into four major lifestyles, namely recognition, introspection, introverted or extroverted (Gough & Heirbrum; 1980, 1983, 2010; Measurement and Planned Development, 2010).The validity of the instrument is well established in the literature and has been adopted in nearly 1,000 research reports (Essentials, 2010). The reliability of the instrument was pilot tested and