Student Satisfaction: An alternative approach to assessing this important concept

A student's overall satisfaction with his/her educational experience has traditionally been measured by a simple 'yes or no' question, or with one question assessing the degree of overall satisfaction. Even though this type of question is simple to answer and analyze, students may not thoroughly reflect upon their previous responses within a questionnaire regarding satisfaction with individual educational attributes when asked to assess their overall satisfaction with a university on the basis of a single question. The purpose of this article is to present an alternative approach to measuring student overall satisfaction using a multiple-item weighted gap score analysis approach. The results suggest that this approach may have more diagnostic value to both academics and practitioners.