ERIC Number: EJ1156701
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Oct
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0141-1926
EISSN: N/A
Postgraduate Student Satisfaction: A Multilevel Analysis of PTES Data
Muijs, Daniel; Bokhove, Christian
British Educational Research Journal, v43 n5 p904-930 Oct 2017
Student satisfaction has received growing attention in Higher Education systems in recent years, and are increasingly used for internal and external accountability in the sector. This does leave us with questions on the extent to which variance in student satisfaction can be explained by Higher Education Institution (HEI) and course attended rather than by individual student characteristics; and on what factors may predict student satisfaction. In this study we used the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) to look at these questions in a sample of approximate 70000 UK postgraduate students from 100 HEI's. Firstly, confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the validity of the proposed multidimensional structure of student satisfaction in PTES. Then multilevel models were used to look at variance at three levels (HEI, course and student), and the relationships between institutional and student factors collected in PTES and student satisfaction. Two years of data (2014 and 2015) were used. Findings suggest that over 90% of variance is explained at the student level for all dimensions of student satisfaction in both years, with variance at the HEI level being particularly low. Individual student characteristics explain more variance than institutional characteristics, but only some (such as BME status) are significant, and explained variance is low. These findings suggest using student satisfaction as an accountability measure in HE may be highly problematic.
Descriptors: Graduate Students, Student Satisfaction, Postdoctoral Education, Multivariate Analysis, Factor Analysis, Student Characteristics, Institutional Characteristics, Accountability, Student Surveys, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A