Measuring Student Satisfaction: Services Provided by Higher Educational Institutions
The changing scenario in education has started to consider student as a customer (Zaiiri, 1995; Hill, 1995; Elliot & Healy 2001; Rowley, 2003; Sakthivel et al, 2005). As the students are the major customer of educational institution, it is important to consider students (customers) satisfaction. This study aims to contribute to the literature by indentifying the components of students` satisfaction with service provided by educational institutions. The components of student satisfaction were identified by conducting interviews with subject matter experts (N=10) and students (N=15) studying bachelor degree in arts, science and commerce in various public and private college in Bangalore. Based on the result of explorative study, the student satisfaction scale was developed with 76 items. This scale was used to collect data from 800 college students. The explorative factor analysis was used to explore factors of student satisfaction and was found that all the items measured single construct ?? student satisfaction. The reliability and validity of the scale was developed. The paper concludes discussing theoretical and academic implications, limitation and future research direction. Keywords: students` satisfaction, expectation disconfirmation theory, scale development and validation