Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 65

2016 International Conference on Education, Management Science and Economics (ICEMSE-16)

Study on the Status of International Students'

Satisfaction with the Quality of Higher Education
Service
CHEN Qiting MIAO Qianqian
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
College of Economic and Management College of Economic and Management
Nanjing, China Nanjing, China
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—the research designed a survey and took a college in or job that pleases one’s esteem., Schreiner & Juillerat,(1994)
[7]
Nanjing as the cases to evaluate the international student defined student satisfaction as “when expectations are met or
satisfaction of higher education service quality. Survey results exceeded by the student’s perception of the campus reality.
show that students are not satisfied with the overall service Sweeney and Ingram(2001) [8] define student satisfaction as
quality of higher education. Study finds 6 factors influencing “The perception of enjoyment and accomplishment in the
student satisfaction in descending order are College reputation, learning environment”.
Campus environment, Academic quality, teaching facilities,
Logistics service and teacher troop. Eight variables have “Evaluation of student satisfaction of internal
significant gender differences. Professional has no significant performance of universities helps higher education institutions
impact on overall satisfaction while grade have significant impact to identify what makes them distinctive and discover critical
on overall satisfaction. areas that have less satisfying and need to be improved to meet
student expectations. Addressing the demands and needs of
Keywords—service quality, student satisfaction, factor analysis, students is critical for higher educational institutions.
gender difference
In China, some researchers such as Fang Baojun (2010)
[9]
I. INTRODUCTION defined the quality of teaching is the sum of teaching
standards and its practice effect .Student s satisfaction is the
With the development of the global economic, China's important reference standard to access the teaching quality.
higher education has been increasingly competitive. Various Yang Lanfang(2011) [10]finds principal factors influencing
studies have focused on the role of quality in higher education student satisfaction in descending order are professional
in order to become competitive in the global arena (Aldridge curriculum, campus culture, faculty, practical innovation,
&Rowley,1998;Athiyaman,1997;Moogan,Baron,&Bainbridge, logistics service, supplementary facilities.
2001;Oldfield&Baron,2000)[1][2][3][4]. Continuous improvement
of existing standards and increased students’ satisfaction has The purpose of this study is the determination of factors
been key issues in service quality at higher educational affecting international student satisfaction of Chinese
institutions in China. Both levels of satisfaction and perception university. To complete this purpose, the research question
of quality will likely determine students’ retention at higher regarding the factor structure for the SSI will be answered:
education institutions. Enhancing educational value is to Which factors have more affective impact on student
expend effort on continuous improvement, focus on satisfaction in University?
stakeholders’ interests and to increase students’ satisfaction
which is often used to assess quality of education. The purpose II. METHODOLOGY
of this study is to investigate the predication of international
students’ satisfaction with their university, including the role A. The sample framework
that gender differences play. The study examines some of the The Student Satisfaction was based on survey data
criteria used by students (including service quality, the trust in gathered (summer 2014) from students attending one college.
the management of the institution and their perception of the All respondents in this survey completed the same
management’s readiness to change) when choosing or questionnaire. The questionnaires were distributed to
evaluating a tertiary institution in China. randomly selected students in pre-determined classes. A total
In many other countries, there are many researches about sample of 1000 students was randomly selected in class
the students’ satisfaction. The American Heritage Dictionary context at the university in China, and 883 valid
(1982)[5] defines satisfaction as the “the fulfillment or questionnaires were recycled. The sample comprised of 19.1
gratification of a desire, need, or appetite”, Kotler and Clarke percent female students.
(1987)[6] defines satisfaction as the desirous outcome of a task

Copyright © 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. 375

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 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 65

B. Measuring instrument and reliability Service quality in HE: In this study the 6 factors from the
scale by De Jager and Gbadamosi (2009) were used to obtain
Information about specific aspects of service quality in HE. 29.5 percent were in their third year, 20 percent were within
The list of items developed to measure service quality in HE the 18–19 years. Aeronautical Engineering were 166(19.9%),
was based on an extensive literature research and the findings Mechanical Engineering were 140(16.8%), Software
of preliminary focus groups consisting of students and Engineering and Technology were 298(35.8%) and
lecturers. Adopting an approach similar to the SERVQUAL International Business were 229(27.5%).
methodology and the importance-performance technique
(Martilla & James,1977)[11], students were asked about the A. Factor analysis of the students satisfaction
importance (I) (rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from ‘very Factor analysis was used as a date reduction tool and as a
important’ to ‘not important at all’), as well as the perceived technique to establish some construct validity for the measure
experiences (P) (rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from of service quality in higher education. Before the factor
‘excellent’ to ‘not good at all’) for each of the 52 items on the analysis, we should have a Bartlett Test of sphericity, KMO
scale. The resulting instrument, a structured questionnaire, were 0.931, Sig were 0.000. The principal components
included several variables related to service quality at higher analysis method was used for initial factor extraction and
educational institutions – the service quality scale (De Jager & Varimax rotation was applied. Seven items were redundant
Gbadamosi, 2009)[12]. In this sample, the 6 scales performed and thus eliminated from further analysis. Six factors were
very well in terms of reliability, with obtained Cronbach’s identified as key dimensions of service quality in higher
alpha ranging from .752 to .935 (details are provided in education. These factors were named as indicated in Table 1.
table3). Items selected with factor loading greater than 0.5 for each
factor. Factors were extracted with eigenvalue greater than 2.
III. DATE ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS Total variation was 65.841 and Factor 1 account for 19.639%
Overall, respondents were 19.1 percent female, 12 percent of total variance. Stevens(1986)Lawley & Maxwell
were in their first year, 43.7 percent were in their second year, (1971 )noted that it is acceptable if the total variance higher
than 60%.
TABLE I. FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION SCALE
Factors---perception of service quality
item 1 2 3 4 5 6
Factor1: College reputation
College reputation compared with other college in same level .725
professional knowledge .679
ability and quality .674
happiness during learning .669
choose again or not .662
College reputation compared with other engineering college .661
future employment .654
features of university’s education .651
overall education quality .605
overall image of college .595
teachers .523
Factor2: Campus environment
employment information .728
Psychological counseling .697
academic exchanges/ academic activities .683
Complain system .671
Patency of expressing opinions .620
Timeliness of getting help .585
Communication between counselors and students .512
Factor3: Academic quality
Atmosphere for learning and overall mood of campus .792
Safety of campus environment .723
Academic atmosphere .683
Elegance of campus environment .676
Factor4: Teaching facilities
Quality and price of meals .604
The adequacy of classrooms .554
Completeness of teaching equipment .536
Rationality of courses arrangement .536
Factor5: Logistics service
Completeness and convenience of dormitory facilities .745
Service attitude of dormitory management and logistics staff? .692
Completeness and Implementation of Regulation .557
Factor6: teacher troop
Language and expression skills of teachers .555
Diversity of teaching methods .550
education service according to students' individualized development .500
Notes: Rotation converged in 13 iterations; extraction method: principal component analysis; rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization; factor
loadings below 0.5 are suppressed for the purpose of analysis.

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 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 65

TABLE II. FACTORS’ EIGENVALUE AND THE VARIANCE CONTRIBUTION RATE

Amount of variance The cumulative variance The variance

Factor eigenvalue explained explained (%) contribution rate (%)
(%)
College reputation 7.659 19.639 19.639 29.83
Campus environment 5.274 13.522 33.161 20.54
Academic quality 3.985 10.218 43.379 15.52
Teaching facilities 3.279 8.407 51.786 12.77
Logistics service 3.183 8.162 59.948 12.39
teacher troop 2.298 5.893 65.841 8.95
Teaching facilities is 0.75, Logistics service is 0.78, and
B. The reliability test teacher troop is 0.82. It is interesting to note that the alpha of
Cronbach's alpha is used as an estimate of the reliability of all the six factors is above 0.7 which indicated that the test is
a psychometric test. The alpha of College reputation is about an acceptable test.
0.94, Campus environment is 0.91, Academic quality is 0.82,

TABLE III. MEAN, VARIANCE AND CRONBACH’S ALPHA OF STUDY VARIABLES

S/N Study variables No. of items Mean variance Alpha
1 College reputation 11 3.395 1.055 0.935
2 Campus environment 7 3.039 1.182 0.907
3 Academic quality 4 3.589 1.089 0.817
4 Teaching facilities 4 3.484 0.961 0.752
5 Logistics service 3 2.772 0.291 0.770
6 teacher troop 3 3.197 0.966 0.815
7 overall satisfaction 1 2.81 1.521 —
Note Items *(1-6) are the named factors for service quality scale in higher education
staff, College reputation, recommend the school to relatives,
C. tudents basic characteristics impact on overall satisfaction Overall expectation. Satisfaction of your college compared
1) Gender differences in students’ satisfaction with your former expectation. The sports and entertainment
The findings relating to gender differences among students facilities and sports and entertainment facilities and courses
across the university are presented in this section. Independent arrangement and administrative staff of the university are
samples t-tests were conducted to examine gender differences significantly more important for males than females. Male
across all study variables – Table4. Significant gender students more than the females significantly recommend the
differences were found with the following variables: school to relatives, the female students were, however,
dormitory facilities, sports and entertainment facilities, significantly more expected overall with their university than
courses arrangement, courses arrangement, administrative the males.

TABLE IV. INdEPENDENT SAMPLES TEST (GENDER DIFFERENCES)

Levene’s Test for
Study Male Female Equality of t-Test for equality of means
variables variance
Mean SD Mean SD F Sig t df Sig(2-tailed)
Q6 2.28 1.181 1.82 1.193 .051 .822 2.041 831 .043
Q7 3.64 .988 2.97 1.218 .865 .353 3.414 831 .001
Q12 3.39 .925 2.76 .987 .005 .943 3.559 831 .000
Q16 3.39 1.085 2.88 1.149 .000 .995 2.472 831 .014
Q34 3.46 1.035 2.97 1.141 .427 .514 2.448 831 .015
Q40 3.34 1.217 2.76 1.519 6.266 .013 2.375 831 .019
Q50 3.72 .953 4.32 .589 9.671 .002 -3.546 831 .000
Q56 3.20 1.065 2.74 1.238 3.315 .070 2.227 831 .027
2) Professional differences in students’ satisfaction
Nonparametric test were conducted to examine the influence of to 0.077 which is greater than 0.05, so Professional have no
different professional on overall satisfaction, in table 5,we can see significant impact on overall satisfaction.
the professional 2 equal to 6.838,and Concomitant probability equal

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 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 65

TABLE V. PROFESSIONAL AND GRADE DIFFERENCES IN STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION

Grouping variable 2 Df progressive significance
professional 6.838 3 .077
Grade 56.723 3 .000

3) Grade differences in students’ satisfaction project:Evaluation of Graduate Education Service Quality

Nonparametric test were also conducted to examine the Based on Kano Model (JGZZ14_015) and China Association
influence of different grade on overall satisfaction. ,we can see for International Education research project: Empirical
the grade 2 equal to 56.723,and Concomitant probability Analysis on Higher Education Service Quality Based on
equal to 0.000 which is less than 0.05, so grade have Customer Satisfaction Model (2002Y009).
significant impact on overall satisfaction.

IV. CONCLUSION
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is sponsored by Graduate Education Reform

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