Student Satisfaction with Higher Education Service Quality: Dimensions and Antecedents

Higher education (HE) institutions are facing dynamic environment and increased international competition. Their success depends on quantity and quality of students they recruit and retain that is influenced to a great extent by student satisfaction. Therefore, HE institutions should be able to properly measure student satisfaction and find ways to manage it. For effective measurement and managing of student satisfaction, HE institutions should be aware of its dimensions and antecedents. The article aims to examine student satisfaction dimensions and antecedents, proposed by various student satisfaction models. The findings suggest that researchers do agree on a several education service quality dimensions (quality of academic and administrative services, physical environment, interpersonal communication), but have different opinions on their precise definition and relative importance (which may be context-specific). Student expectations, perceived value of education service, image of an institution, students' pre-enrolment opinions and motivation to participate in higher education, as well as learning style are viewed as antecedents of student satisfaction (direct and indirect) in various models.