Examining Student Satisfaction with Higher Education Services_IJPSM.pdf (203.72 kB)
Examining student satisfaction with higher education services: using a new measurement tool
journal contribution
posted on 2013-03-11, 14:23 authored by Thorsten GruberThorsten Gruber, Stefan Fuss, Roediger Voss, Michaela Glaeser-ZikudaPurpose – This paper aims to investigate how students perceive the services they are offered at a German university and how satisfied they are with them.
Design/methodology/approach – An evaluation study using a new tool to measure 15 dimensions of student satisfaction at an institutional level that covers most aspects of student life was used. It was decided to develop a new measurement tool as many existing surveys are poorly designed, lack standardization and give no evidence concerning reliability or validity. Questionnaires were handed out in eight lectures for the pilot study and 18 lectures for the main study. The response rate was 99 percent. A total of 374 students (pilot study) and 544 students (main study) filled in the newly developed questionnaires using Likert scales.
Findings – The study gave a valuable insight into how students perceive the quality of the services offered at a university and how satisfied they are with these offerings. The results show that students' satisfaction with their university is based on a relatively stable person-environment relationship. Thus, the satisfaction of students seems to reflect quite well perceived quality differences of offered services and of the wider environment. Students were particularly satisfied with the school placements and the atmosphere among students. Students were mostly dissatisfied with the university buildings and the quality of the lecture theatres.
Research limitations/implications – As the study involved only two samples of students from one university, the results cannot be generalized to the German student population as a whole.
Originality/value – The study was the first to successfully apply a measurement tool, which has previously not been used. The study has hopefully opened up an area of research and methodology that could provide considerable further benefits for researchers interested in this topic. It also shows how the concept of student satisfaction could be assessed in future studies.
Funding
The authors are grateful to the University of Education Ludwigsburg for receiving a research project grant. The authors would also like to thank the participants of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Marketing (ICHEM), Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, April 2-4, for invaluable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper.
History
School
- Business and Economics
Department
- Business
Citation
GRUBER, T. ... et al., 2010. Examining student satisfaction with higher education services: using a new measurement tool. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 23 (2), pp. 105 - 123.Publisher
© Emerald Group Publishing LimitedVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2010Notes
This article was published in the International Journal of Public Sector Management [© Emerald Group Publishing Limited] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09513551011022474ISSN
0951-3558Publisher version
Language
- en