Antecedents of private university students’ satisfaction: The effects of traditional and electronic service quality

Abstract

High competition in the higher education sector, especially private universities, has brought a high attention to service quality that can increase students’ satisfaction and their retention rates. This study aimed to investigate the effect of traditional and electronic service quality of private universities in Jakarta on students’ satisfaction. A total of 151 students’ responses from three private universities in Jakarta were collected. A factor analysis with the Principal Component Analysis method with Varimax rotation, Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Importance Performance Map Analysis (IPMA) were performed. The results proved that perceived value of traditional service quality and perceived web value significantly affected student satisfaction. The three indicators of perceived quality provided by administrative staff (b=0.198), perceived quality of university infrastructure (β=0.333), and perceived quality of support services (β=0.362) significantly affected students’ satisfaction while in the context of electronic service quality, only accessibility (β=0.469) and attractiveness (β=0.123) had significant effects on students’ satisfaction. Furthermore, the two-dimensional IPMA matrix indicated the dominance of importance (score=0.621) and performance (score=66.438) of perceived value over the perceived web value.

Keywords

• rivate universities
• traditional service quality
• e-service quality
• students’ satisfaction