Assessing antecedents and consequences of student satisfaction in higher education: evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

This paper explores the interrelationships of the key influences on student satisfaction via multivariate analysis from three groups of university students in two popular private universities in Malaysia. The correlation coefficient and structural model indicated that student satisfaction is influenced not only by academic quality, but also by the university core services, information technology services, and skill building. These dimensions are linked to one another. The strong interrelationships between these dimensions are indicative that holistic approach needs to be adopted rather than dealing with each dimension in isolation in creating a valued education. Significant performance gaps of key influences indicated that the satisfaction levels are below students’ expectation despite the satisfaction scores being above average. Academic assessment, teaching quality, and IT are areas where a university management needs to prioritize resources in order to increase student satisfaction. Students who perceived higher value are more likely to have higher repurchase intention.

Keywords:

• student satisfaction
• perceived value
• higher education
• performance gaps
• developing economy

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support received. We thank Prof. Dr Tou Teck Yong for valuable comments and suggestions. We also thank Shek-Lee Cheng, Jo-Hau Cheng, and Mcxin Tee for research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

S.H. Lau http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4281-5016

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Multimedia University under Grant IP20100421001.