Student Satisfaction in Jose Rizal University

Introduction Students opinions about completely aspects of academic bread and butter atomic number 18 now sought by pedagogicsal institutions worldwide, generally, in the urinate of a merriment feedback marvelnaire. It is this assimilator joy go over, within the context of assimilator satisfaction in JRU Jose Rizal University. In the Philippines, Higher Education (HE) students were considered to be the primordial customers of a University ,even before they were liable for the payment of up-front tuition fees. Students are the flat recipients of the benefit provided.As if to confirm this status of the student as customer, the Commision on Higher Education (CHED) has introduced a National Student Survey. This pillowcase field is started at root year students to seek their views on a number of aspects of education, sound judgment and support provided by their university and its courses. The results will ultimately be used by the school to produce league tables of un iversity implementation. The position of a university in whatsoever league tables will impact ultimately on its image.Image has a toilsome impact on the retention of current students and the attraction of potential students. thence recruitment and retention of students has been moved to the top of about universities agendas by CHED out-of-pocket to their desire to increase the JRU student population in line with politics targets. Poor retention rates may have adverse funding consequences for University . This paper takes the view that student satisfaction, retention and recruitment are nigh linked.Thus student satisfaction has become an extremely consequential issue for universities and their management. The aim is to try to maximise student satisfaction, minimise dissatisfaction and in that locationfore retain students and so improve the institutions performance across a number of league tables. victorious these criticisms into consideration the questionnaire used in th e satisfaction see asked only for perceptions of performance of a hunt of avail aspects (as hearty as richness) but did not aim to collect selective information associated with expectations.Indeed, the go over questionnaire was designed around the model of the friender- growth bundle. This concept is discussed in the next section. The portion- ingathering bundle The matter of inspection and repair talking to is a tangible product, and a bundle of goods and function as the product offering . The service-product bundle refers to the inseparable offering of many goods and services including what Jose Rizal University has to offer its students. This bundle consists of three elements (1) the physical or facilitating goods 2) the sensual service provided the intelligible service and (3) the psychological service the tacit service. For a university the facilitating goods include the yap aways and tutorials, notification slides, supplementary payout documents/materials and the recommended module text. It overly includes the physical facilities much(prenominal) as the speech communication theatres and tutorial live and their aim of furnishing, decoration, lighting and layout as well up as ancillary services such as supply and volunteer(a) amenities.The explicit service includes the knowledge levels of staff, staff education ability, the consistency of instruction step irrespective of personnel, ease of making appointments with staff, the level of difficulty of the content content and the acetifyload. The implicit service includes the treatment of students by staff, including friendliness and approachability, clientele shown if the student has a problem, respect for feelings and opinions, availability of staff, capability and competence of staff.It also includes the ability of the universitys purlieu to make out the student feel comfortable, the wizard of competence, confidence and professionalism conveyed by the ambience in duns and tutorials, feeling that the students best interest is universe served and a feeling that rewards are self-consistent with the effort put into course works /examinations. All of the above are based on students perceptions of the various parts of the service and the data is ordinarily collected via some form of feedback questionnaire.Why collect student feedback? (1) to provide auditable examine that students have had the opportunity to pass comment on their courses and that such data is used to bring about improvements (2) to encourage student reflection on their learning (3) to deliver institutions to benchmark and to provide indicators that will contribute to the theme of the university in the marketplace and (4) to provide students with an opportunity to express their level of satisfaction with their academic experience.The last bullet point as the rationale commode the survey undertaken for the particular research project described in this paper. holding customers s atisfied is what leads to customer dedication. Research conducted by J whizs and Sasser Jr (1995) into thirty organisations from five diametric markets found that where customers have choices the link between satisfaction and homage is bilinear as satisfaction rises, so too does loyalty. However, in markets where competition was penetrative they found a difference between the loyalty of satisfied and on the substantial satisfied customers.Put simply, if satisfaction is ranked on a 1-5 crustal plate from solely disgruntled to completely satisfied, the 4s though satisfied were six times much credibly to defect than the 5s. Customer loyalty manifests itself in many forms of customer behavior. J superstars and Sasser Jr (1995) grouped ways of measuring loyalty into three principal(prenominal) categories (1) intent to re-purchase (2) primary conduct organisations have entrance fee to information on various transactions at the customer level and can track five categories that show actual customer re-purchasing behaviour viz, recency, frequency, amount, retention, and longevity and 3) secondary behaviour e. g. customer referrals, endorsements and spreading the word are all extremely distinguished forms of consumer behaviour for an organisation. Translating this into university services, this covers intent to take at a higher level within the same institution, how frequently and youngly a student used ancillary services, such as the library, cater and IT services, and lastly the willingness to recommend the institution to friends, neighbours and fellow employees. Issues impacting on student satisfaction Price et al. 2003) recently reported on the impact of facilities on undergrad student choice of university. They surveyed a number of universities over dickens eld in rate to check over students reasons for selecting a particular university. The average results for the two years were fairly akin(predicate) the top eight reasons being it h ad the overcompensate course, availability of computers, spirit of library facilities, good teaching reputation, availability of peace of mind areas, availability of areas for self-study, quality of public transport in the town/ city and a friendly attitude towards students.Clearly, students perceptions of a universitys facilities are one of the main influences on their decision to enrol. Coles (2002) found that student satisfaction is reduced when class sizes are volumedr in earlier cohorts, and when students are victorious compulsory cell nucleus modules rather than optional modules. The quality of any of the service encounters, or moments of truth (Carlzon, 1989) experienced by customers forms part of their overall notion of the whole service provided, (Dale, 2003) and by implication, their impression of the organisation itself.As Deming (1982) commented, near great deal form their opinions based on the people that they see, and they are either dissatisfied or delighted, or some other point on the continuum in between. In order to deliver high quality services to students, universities mustiness manage e really aspect of the students interaction with all of their service offerings and in particular those involving its people. Services are delivered to people by people, and the moments of truth can make or break a universitys image (Banwet and Datta, 2003).In order to deliver primitive student satisfaction, all employees of a university should Ad here to the principles of quality customer service, whether they be front-line contact staff involved in teaching or administration, or non-contact staff in management or administrative roles (Gold, 2001 Low, 2000, cited in Banwet and Datta, 2003). In a recent survey conducted with 310 all male Saudi Arabian students attending the originfulness Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Sohail and Shaikh (2004) found that contact personnel was the most influencing factor in students evaluation of servi ce quality.However, physical environment, layout, lighting, classrooms, style of buildings and cubic yard and the overall cleanliness also significantly contributed to students concepts of service quality. Galloway (1998) studied the role of the qualification administration office in one UK University on student perceptions of service quality. He found that it impacted directly on students and influenced their perceptions of the quality of the whole institution. The office performance also had a direct impact on academic and technical staff within the faculty.These front-line staff in their mold had a direct impact on students, potential students and other clients. The main predictors of quality for students were found to be . office has a professional appearance . staff dress smartly . never too busy to suspensor and . opening hours are personally convenient. Banwet and Datta (2003) believed that satisfied customers are loyal, and that satisfied students were likely to attend another bedevil delivered by the same slashr or opt for another module or course taught by her/him.In their survey of 168 students who attended four clavers delivered by the same lecturer, covering perceived service quality, importance and post-visit intentions, they found that students placed more importance on the outcome of the lecture (knowledge and skills gained, availability of class notes and reading material, coverage and depth of the lecture and teachers feedback on assessed work) than any other dimension.This supports the findings of Schneider and Bowen (1995) who deduced that the quality of the core service influences the overall quality of the service perception. For universities the core service bringing method is assuage the lecture. Overall Banwet and Datta (2003) found that students intentions to re-attend or recommend lectures was reliant on their perceptions of quality and the satisfaction they got from attending previous lectures. This is supported by the re search of Hill et al. (2003) who utilised localize groups to determine what quality education meant to students.The most chief(prenominal) theme was the quality of the lecturer including classroom delivery, feedback to students during the academic term and on assignments, and the relationship with students in the classroom. Research by Tam (2002) to treasure the impact of Higher Education (HE) on students academic, favorable and personal growth at a Hong Kong university found that as a result of their university experience students had changed intellectually, socially, emotionally and culturally. This growth was evidenced as students progressed from one year to another as their university career developed.Is this also the case with student perceptions of service quality and satisfaction? A number of researchers have suggested that this cleverness indeed be the case (Hill, 1995 ONeil, 2003) although hold uping valid and reliable data to support such a stance is difficult. This study aims to determine if there are differences in those aspects of a university service that students consider important, as well as their satisfaction levels, associated with their year/level of study, i. e. first, second and third. MethodologyA quantitative survey was designed to elicit student satisfaction levels across the Universitys service offerings. The questionnaire consisted of __ questions informed by previous research studies and sub dissever into the various categories of the service product bundle including, lecture and tutorial facilities, ancillary facilities, the facilitating goods, the explicit service and the implicit service. At the end students were asked for their overall satisfaction rating and whether they would recommend the University to a prospective student.The satisfaction questions were preceded by a series of demographic questions that would allow the sample population to be segmented. These included, interalia, questions regarding gender, age, leve l of study, mode of study and demesne of origin. Participation in the survey was entirely voluntary and anonymous. The length and complexity of the questionnaire was influenced, in part, by the balance between the quest for data and get students to complete the survey. The questionnaire was piloted among 100 undergraduate volunteers.The length of time it took them to complete the survey was noted and at the end they were asked for any comments regarding the validity and reliability of exclusive questions. They were also asked if there was anything missing from the questionnaire. Based on the feedback received a number of questions were amended and the design of the questionnaire altered slightly. It took on average 12 minutes to complete the questionnaire. In order to get as large and representative a sample as possible, we conduct survey question in first year student in all courses in were targeted.Staff teaching these modules were approached and permission sought to utilise f or a few minuetes of their lecture time in order to explain the rationale behind the survey and to persuade students to complete the survey in class. Generally this personal signature was successful in eliciting a good response. Over the course of the two weeks the survey was undertaken, only one person refused to complete the questionnaire. Researchers are divided as to whether or not determinants of satisfaction should be weighted by their importance because varied attributes may be of unequal importance to different people.In this study both satisfaction and importance were deliberate. There is no such thing as the perfect rating scale. However, some produce more reliable and valid results than others. Devlin et al. (1993) determined that a good rating scale should have, inter alia, the following characteristics . minimal response bias . discriminating power . ease of administration and . ease of use by respondents. In order to accommodate these characteristics, the rating sca le contained five points with well- positiond anchor points representing the possible range of opinions about the service.The scale contained a neutral category and the negative categories were presented first (to the left). Thus, undergraduates were required to respond utilising a 5-point Likert scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is very un suitable, 2 is unsatisfactory, 3 is neutral (neither satisfactory or unsatisfactory), 4 is satisfactory and 5 is very satisfactory. This type of scale provides a common al-Qaeda for responses to items concerned with different aspects of the University experience.The importance that students place on each criteria was measured utilising a 5-point Likert scale, where 1 is very unimportant, 2 is unimportant, 3 is neutral (neither important or unimportant) 4 is important and 5 is very important. Respondents were asked to tick the blow next to the number that represented their opinion on each item. A sample of 865 students from a total within the Faculty of 3800 was surveyed. The questionnaires were analysed using SPSS v. 11 and Quadrant Analysis conducted in order to determine those areas perceived as being the to the lowest degree satisfactory with the greatest importance rating.Finally, respondent focus groups were assembled to discuss some of the issues that required more in-depth analysis and which, due to constraints of space and time, were not explicitly asked about in the original survey. Results A total of questionnaires were returned, although not all had complete data sets. table I expand the demographic mix of the respondents. Based on all student responses, the most important (i. e. list of the top ten starting from the highest value) and least important (i. e. ist of the bottom ten starting from the lowest value) aspects of the University service are shown in Table II. As can be seen from Table II the most important areas of the University services are those associated with learning and teaching. Interestingly, given the recommendations of a organisation White Paper (HEFCE et al. , 2003) that from 2006 all newly recruited university teaching staff should obtain a teaching qualification that incorporates agreed professional standards, the most important aspect of the service is the teaching ability of staff, closely followed by their subject expertise.The consistency of teaching quality irrespective of the teacher is also considered by the respondents as important, recognising that teaching quality can be variable. The students also see the importance of the lecture and tutorial, which is not surprising given that for most universities that is still the core service offering and is very much linked to the teaching ability and subject knowledge of staff. Teaching and learning support materials were Table 1. 1 Demographic mix of respondents GenderMale Female46 54 NationalityHome(Filipino)International89 4 Mode of StudyFull-time temporary sandwich Level of studyLevel1 Level2 Level3 Note Sandwich students are those whose program of study includes a year in industry Table 2. 2 close to important and least important aspects of service RatingMost ImportantLeast important 1Teaching ability of staffDecoration in lecture facilities 2Subject expertise of staffVending machines 3IT facilitiesDecoration in tutorial rooms 4LecturesFurnishings in lecture facilities 5Supplementary lecture materialsRecreational facilities TutorialsAvailability of parking 7Consistency of teaching quality irrespective of teacherThe layout of tutorial/seminar rooms 8White boardThe layout of lecture facilities 9The Learning imagings CentreThe on-campus ply facilities 10The approachability of teaching staffThe quality of clownish support Note Blackboard is a virtual learning environment that students can access off and on campus also ranked highly, especially supplementary handout materials and the use of Blackboard for enhancing student learning.These are mostly associated with the explicit service deli vered to the students and the facilitating goods. With regard to facilities, students have ranked the importance of IT facilities very highly, reflecting the usefulness of connection to the Internet for research purposes and software packages for producing high quality word-processed documentation for coursework assignments and dissertations. This links well with the high ranking of the Learning Resource Centre where IT facilities can be accessed and books and journals ourced in hard copy or electronic copy. Table II also shows those areas of the service that students find comparatively unimportant. These are mostly associated with the lecture and tutorial facilities and the ancillary services, for example, layout and decoration of lecture and tutorial facilities, catering facilities and vending machines. A further analysis was undertaken to determine whether different segments of the respondent population had similar or different rankings of the University services attributes with regard to importance and unimportance.With regard to mode of study, Table III shows the rankings for students examine climb-time with the University. Whilst acknowledging the fact that 80 per cent of the sample population is full time students, the rankings of those service aspects considered most important are very similar to those for the sample population as a whole, the only difference being that supplementary tutorial materials replaces approachability of staff.Once again the majority of aspects considered least important are associated with the facilities and ancillary services When the views of Part-time students are considered, a number of interesting differences in their priorities are worthy of discussion. Table IV shows the rankings of service aspects for part time students. The IT facilities drops from third to tenth in their importance rankings, perhaps indicative of the fact that they have access to IT facilities at work and/or at home, thus rendering it less importa nt relation back to other aspects of service.Blackboard (a virtual learning environment that allows teaching staff to make learning and other material available via the internet), on the other hand rises from 10th to 7th in importance indicating its usefulness as a teaching aid for students who do not attend the University on a cursory basis and who may miss classes due to work or family commitments. Interestingly, the helpfulness of technical staff is considered unimportant, again reflecting their access to such help at work or a greater level of expertise on their part through working with IT on a daily basis. RankingMost importantLeast important Teaching ability of staffDecoration in lecture facilities 2Subject expertise of staffDecoration in tutorial rooms 3IT facilitiesVending machines 4LecturesFurnishing in tutorials 5TutorialsFurnishing in lectures 6Supplementary lecture materialsAvailability of parking 7Consistency of teaching quality irrespective of teacherRecreational fa cilities 8The Learning Resources CentreThe layout of tutorial/seminar rooms 9Supplementary tutorial materialsThe on-campus catering facilities 10BlackboardThe layout of lecture facilities Table III. Most important and least important service aspects for full-time students RatingMost importantLeast important Teaching ability of staffRecreational facilities 2Subject expertise of staffVending machines 3Consistency of teaching quality irrespective of teacherDecoration in lecture facilities 4Teaching and learning equipment in lecturesFurnishings in lecture facilities 5The Learning Resources CentreDecoration in tutorial rooms 6LecturesQuality of pastoral support 7BlackboardThe on-campus catering facilities 8Supplementary lecture materialsThe layout of tutorial/seminar rooms 9Supplementary tutorial materialsHelpfulness of technical staff 10IT facilitiesThe lecture facilities overall