INTERNATINAL STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION TOWARDS SERVICE QUALITY WITH PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Malaysia Government quest to obtain Malaysia as a hub of education by 2020 due to growing number of international students’ enrollment (Chu, et al., 2015). However, the competition is high as the both public and private institutions in Malaysia more focused on enrollment of international students in order to achieve the target. Therefore, students’ satisfaction is vital in a high education industry to stay competitive in the market as well as to thrive and survive (Hasan & Masri, 2014). This include that the high education institutions should understand the perceptions of the students to satisfy the needs.

Few research have been conducted on students’ satisfaction with the service quality in the higher education sector in Malaysia, however the previous studies focused on local students’ as well as the survey distributed in public institutions only (Momen & Sultana, 2014). Thus, the aim of this study is to ascertain the main factors that influence on international students’ satisfaction with private higher universities in Malaysia. In this study will be used SERVQUAL measurement to identify whether service quality
dimensions namely tangibility, reliability, responsiveness and empathy has significant relationship on students’ satisfaction. Furthermore, descriptive research employed in this study hence, the quantitative research design has been conducted as well as the data analyzed by using SPSS. The findings of this study show that three SQ dimensions namely tangibles, reliability and empathy have positive significant influence on international students’ satisfaction. Therefore, this research will contribute to the
researchers’ and managers of the private higher education institutions for strategic planning to develop service quality and its effectiveness.