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565-579 Charter schools and the quality of education in California: do they yield the best form of competition?
Soyoung Park
DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2020.110686
580-610 Leading sustainable schools in the era of Education 4.0: identifying school leadership competencies in Malaysian secondary schools
Tai Mei Kin; Omar Abdull Kareem; Khalip Musa; Arsalan Mujahid Ghouri;
Naveed R. Khan
DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2020.110690
611-627 Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction in the Indonesian private higher education institutions
Halimatussakdiah; M. Shabri Abd. Majid; Nasir Azis DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2020.110691
628-643 Perception of the acquisition of competences for university professors in a context of problem-based learning methodology
Francisco Jareño; Raquel Álamo; M. Gabriela Lagos; Juan J. Jiménez DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2020.110693
644-664 Facing a shrinking population: is government control an effective strategy for higher education?
Juseuk Kim; Lynn Ilon
DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2020.110694
Int. J. Management in Education, Vol. 14, No. 6, 2020 611
Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction in the Indonesian private higher education institutions
Halimatussakdiah
Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Syiah Kuala,
Darussalam, Banda Aceh, Indonesia Email: halimatussakdiah@unsyiah.ac.id
M. Shabri Abd. Majid*
Department of Economics,
Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Syiah Kuala,
Darussalam, Banda Aceh, Indonesia Email: mshabri@unsyiah.ac.id
*Corresponding author
Nasir Azis
Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Syiah Kuala,
Darussalam, Banda Aceh, Indonesia Email: nasirazis@unsyiah.ac.id
Abstract: Motivated by a recent global trend of increasingly competitive and commercial-oriented tertiary education institutions and within an atmosphere that now recognises university as a major services producer and students as the customers, this study attempts to explore the mediating effect of student perceived value on the influences of student perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction in the private higher education in Aceh, Indonesia. 300 students from 109 private higher education institutions were chosen as the respondents of the study using the multi-stage sampling technique. Using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), the study documented that student perceived value was documented to mediate the effects of the student’s perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction. These findings implied that to further providing greater student satisfaction, the private higher education institutions should enhance the student perceived orientation and higher education image as well as the student perceived value.
Keywords: student perceived orientation; image; perceived value; satisfaction;
private university.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Halimatussakdiah, Abd.
Majid, M.S. and Azis, N. (2020) ‘Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction in the Indonesian private higher education institutions’, Int. J. Management in Education, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp.611–627.
Biographical notes: Halimatussakdiah is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Syiah Kuala. She completed her PhD degree in Management Sciences from the Universitas Syiah Kuala, Indonesia.
Her research interests include management in education, performance measurement system, and public management. She has published a few articles in international refereed journals and presented papers in various seminars locally and internationally.
M. Shabri Abd. Majid is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Syiah Kuala (Unsyiah). He completed his PhD degree in Financial Economics from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in 2005. Currently, he is the Head of the Master of Economics at the FEB, Unsyiah. His research interests include financial economics, applied econometrics, Islamic economics, banking, and finance. He has published more than 100 articles in international refereed journals and has presented his papers in many international conferences. He is serving several international reputable journals as the editorial board’s member and reviewer.
Nasir Azis is a Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Syiah Kuala. He completed his PhD degree from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan. Currently, He is the Dean of Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Indonesia. His research interests include marketing management, performance measurement system, and public management. He has published many articles in international refereed journals and presented papers in various seminars locally and internationally.
1 Introduction
In the last few decades, studies on customer satisfaction have mainly focused only on profit-oriented organisations. However, a recent phenomenon of an increasingly competitive and commercial-oriented university worldwide (Brown and Mazzarol, 2009) has attracted more researchers to study on customer satisfaction among university students. Thus, the topic of services marketing in the university sector has recently emerged as an imperative area of customer research. Within an atmosphere that now recognises university as a major service provider, and students as customers, the study determining student satisfaction would appear to become more important and valuable.
Relying on the product marketing perspective, this study focuses its analysis on the satisfaction of the student as the university customer and its determinants from the service marketing view. Thus, determinants of student satisfaction such as customer orientation are viewed from the perspective of the student (termed as student perceived orientation). Instead of using the term “customer orientation” of Bristow and Schneider (2002) as in the product marketing literature, the study uses the specific term “student perceived orientation” as in the service marketing research to indicate the student perceived orientation as the major customer of services offered by the university.
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction 613 From a marketing perspective, satisfaction has been considered as a function of the expectation level and perceptions of disconfirmation (Oliver, 1980). Satisfaction involves the evaluation of an entire product bundle or offering (Cardozo, 1965). Marketing is viewed as the function of the manager’s connections between the organisation and customer satisfaction (Moorman and Rust, 1999). In the context of higher education, marketing is defined as a response to consumer needs and wants, naturally, universities’
primary consumers are students (Motekaitiené and Juščius, 2008). Students’ satisfaction is the favourability of a student’s subjective evaluation of the various outcomes and experiences associated with education (Elliott and Shin, 2002).
Student satisfaction is affected by many factors; one of them is perceived value (Ledden et al., 2007; Brown and Mazzarol, 2009). Value is the worth of specific action or object relative to an individual’s or organisation’s need at a particular point in time. The organisation creates value by offering the types of services that customers need, accurately presenting their capabilities and delivering them in a pleasing and confinement fashion at an acceptable price (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2011). From the customer viewpoint, the value is situational, depending on the context where the exchange happens (Sampaio et al., 2012). Thus, to provide a greater satisfaction level, the organisation should create superior value for the customers (Narver and Slater, 1990; Woodruff, 1997). Creating the sustainable superior value for the customer is an important part of the organisation (Deshpandé et al., 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990) by continuously understanding the customer’s entire value chain (Slater and Narver, 1994). At the higher education institution, the superior value is subsequently influenced by institutional image and enhances their orientation (Brown and Mazzarol, 2009; Alves and Raposo, 2006).
Previous studies investigated the determinants of customer satisfaction that have been more focusing on product-produced firms that oriented for maximising profits than the non-profit oriented universities that producing services. Additionally, previous studies only examined the direct effect of customer orientation and organisation image on customer satisfaction (Casidy, 2014) and few of them investigated the direct effect of customer orientation on perceived value in the private sector (Valenzuela et al., 2010).
None of the studies, to the best of our knowledge, has empirically explored the mediating effect of perceived value on the influences of customer orientation and organisation image on customer satisfaction in higher education institutions.
Thus, the study intends to fill up this existing gap by examining the role of perceived value in mediating the effects of student perceived orientation and university image on student satisfaction, taking the private higher education institutions in Aceh, Indonesia as the population of the study. Specifically, this study probes the following research questions: (1) to what extent student perceived orientation and higher education image affect student perceived value?; (2) the extent to which student perceived orientation and higher education image influence student satisfaction?; (3) does student perceived value cause student satisfaction to change?; and (4) does student perceived value mediate the effects of student perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction? The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used as a suitable advanced model to explore the issue.
The findings of this study are hoped to shed some light for the relevant authorities, particularly the private universities and the ministry of higher education to design proper strategies to offer higher student satisfaction by focusing on the enhancement of perceived value based on student perceived orientation and the private university image.
The rest of this study is structured in the following sequences. Section 2 reviews previous
related studies and constructs the hypotheses. Section 3 provides the empirical framework and data description, followed by research findings and their discussion in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper.
2 Literature review
Since the main objective of this study is to empirically explore the mediating effect of student perceived value on the relationships between student perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction at the private higher education institutions in Indonesia, thus the definitions of variables and their relevant theories and previous studies on the nature of interactions among the investigated variables is discussed in this section.
2.1 Student perceived orientation
From a marketing perspective, the main theory of customer orientation is market orientation. It is defined as the set of beliefs that put the customer’s interest first, but without ignoring the other stakeholders such as owners, managers, and employees to develop a long-term profitable enterprise (Deshpandé et al., 1993). The concept of customer orientation focuses on three core pillars, namely: customer focus, coordinated marketing, and profitability (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990).
Initially, the concept of customer orientation is mainly applied to the product marketing activity, but due to an increasingly market-oriented university atmosphere, this concept has recently applied to the services marketing of the universities operating in the sector (Akonkwa, 2013). Thus, this study applies this concept to measure the customer orientation of the university student (termed as the student perceived orientation) and its effect on student satisfaction. Following the earlier studies by Bristow and Schneider (2002) and Akonkwa (2013), the student perceived orientation is defined as the degree to which a college or university takes action and makes decisions based upon the needs of the students as well as the goal and objectives of the institution.
2.2 Higher education image
The term image indicates a holistic and vivid impression of an individual or a particular group in an organisation. According to Hatch and Schultz (1997), the image is a result of sense-making by an individual or a group and communication by the organisation of a fabricated and projected picture of itself. Thus, an institution’s image is the result of a collective process by which the public compares and contrasts a range of attributes offered by the organisation (Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001).
Based on the above definition, therefore, a higher education image implies the sum of all the beliefs a student has on the services provided by the university (Duarte et al., 2010). The positive news of the university, the innovative studying and learning process, and the superiority of a university over the others are among the indicators of the university image (Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001; Quoquab et al., 2013; Hussain et al., 2014).
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction 615 2.3 Student perceived value
In the marketing theory, customer value is defined by Zeithaml (1988) as the consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product based on perceptions of what is received and what is given. As a customer of the service good offered by the university, Zeithaml (1988) defined the student perceived value as a student value on the overall assessment of the utility of services received and given by the university. Thus, the student’s perceived value refers to the student’s anticipations concerning the outcome of purchasing and using an education service given both benefit and sacrifice (Spreng et al., 1993). Tuition fee and the received benefit of services, imperative, innovative, and value content of courses, contribution of lectures to the improvement of student hard and soft skills have been among the indicators measuring the student perceived value on the university (LeBlanc and Nguyen, 1999; Ledden et al., 2007; Ledden and Kalafatis, 2010).
2.4 Student satisfaction
From the marketing perspective, Spreng et al. (1993) defined customer satisfaction as an affective reaction of a customer to his/her overall experience of purchasing and consuming a product or service. As a customer of educational services offered by the university, thus the student satisfaction shows the favourability of a student’s appraisal of a range of upshots and experiences associated with the services of education provided by the tertiary education institutions (Elliott and Shin, 2002). Student experiences in the university enrolment, studying and learning process, quality of services, and content of coursework have commonly used to measure student satisfaction (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2001; Rojas-Mendez et al., 2009; Li, 2013).
2.5 Hypotheses development
Previous studies on the determinants of perceived value and its influence on satisfaction have focused on the private business sector rather than the public sector. For example, Valenzuela et al. (2010) and Lee et al. (2010) found a significant relationship between market orientation and perceived value. Although the relationship between market orientation and perceived value has been established in the private sector across developed countries, little attention has been focused on the public sector especially in higher education context in developing countries (Blocker et al., 2011). Thus, this study intends to examine this hypothesis, as the first hypotheses for the study as follows:
H1: Student perceived orientation has a significant effect on student perceived value Previous studies found a relationship between institutional image and perceived value (Brown and Mazzarol, 2009; Sánchez-Fernández et al., 2010). The evidence of the relationship between institutional image and perceived value have been documented in many private business sectors (Hussain et al., 2015), but has little evidence in the public sector (Alves and Raposo, 2006). Motivated to provide evidence on the institutional image and perceived value relationship in higher education institution in the developing country of Indonesia, this study intends to probe the following second hypotheses as follows:
H2: Higher education image has a significant effect on student perceived value
Ndubisi (2012) and Chung et al. (2014) documented a strong significant effect of market orientation on customer satisfaction for the cases of the private business sector. However, this evidence has been lacking for the public organisation, especially the institutions of higher education (Casidy, 2014). Thus, this study intends to fill up this lacking evidence by testing the following third proposed hypothesis as follows:
H3: Student perceived orientation has a significant effect on student satisfaction
Previous studies on the private business sector found a strong relationship between institutional image and student satisfaction (Temizer and Turkyilmaz, 2012; Dib and Alnazer, 2013; Chung et al., 2014). Similar evidence on the public sector is scare. Thus, this motivates us to provide empirical evidence on institutional image-student satisfaction relation of the higher education institution in Indonesia by testing the fourth proposed hypotheses as below:
H4: Higher education image has a significant effect on student satisfaction
The influence of perceived value on customer satisfaction has great attention (Wu, 2011;
Blocker et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2014). These studies found that perceived value has a significant effect on customer satisfaction in the private business sector. Similarly, perceived value also found to have a significant effect on student satisfaction in the public organisation of higher education institutions (Alves and Raposo, 2006; Ledden et al., 2007; Brown and Mazzarol, 2009). Temizer and Turkyilmaz (2012) and Dib and Alnazer (2013) found a weak effect of perceived value on student satisfaction. Based on this previous literature, the study proposed the following fifth hypotheses:
H5: Student perceived value has a significant effect on student satisfaction.
Previous studies by Ndubisi (2012) and Chung et al. (2014) found a significant relationship between market orientations on customer satisfaction for the cases of the private business sector. This implies that the higher the level of customers’ orientation, the higher would be their satisfaction. This satisfaction also influenced by their perceived values (Wu, 2011; Blocker et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2014; Alves and Raposo, 2006;
Ledden et al., 2007; Brown and Mazzarol, 2009). This empirical evidence shows that student perceived orientation affects student perceived value, and it in turn affecting student satisfaction. Thus, this study intends to test the indirect effect of student perceived orientation on student satisfaction via the student perceived value in the following sixth proposed hypothesis:
H6: Student perceived orientation indirectly affects student satisfaction through student perceived value.
Brown and Mazzarol (2009), Sánchez-Fernández et al. (2010), Hussain et al. (2015) found a relationship between institutional image and perceived value. Additionally, the influence of perceived value on customer satisfaction has been documented in the private business sector (Wu, 2011; Blocker et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2014) and public sector (Alves and Raposo, 2006; Ledden et al., 2007; Brown and Mazzarol, 2009) although their relationships have been weaker compared to the private business sector (Temizer and Turkyilmaz, 2012; Dib and Alnazer, 2013). These show that the student perceived orientation has an effect on student perceived value, and the student perceived value, in
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction 617 turn, affecting student satisfaction. Thus, this study intends to test the indirect effect of higher education image on student satisfaction via the student perceived value in the following seventh proposed hypothesis:
H7: Higher education image indirectly affects student satisfaction through student perceived value
Based on the above literature review, it is clear that customer satisfaction is affected significantly by customer satisfaction (Ndubisi, 2012; Chung et al., 2014), institutional image (Temizer and Turkyilmaz, 2012; Dib and Alnazer, 2013; Chung et al., 2014), customer perceived value (Alves and Raposo, 2006; Ledden et al., 2007; Brown and Mazzarol, 2009; Wu, 2011; Blocker et al., 2011; Temizer and Turkyilmaz, 2012; Dib and Alnazer, 2013; Yang et al., 2014; Hussain et al., 2015; Giner and Rillo, 2016), and not vice versa. Additionally, previous studies also documented that customer perceived value is significantly influenced by customer orientation (Valenzuela et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2010) and institutional image (Brown and Mazzarol, 2009; Sánchez-Fernández et al., 2010; Hussain et al., 2015). These previous empirical evidences show that student perceived orientation and institutional image have significant effects on student perceived value, and in turn, affecting student satisfaction. On this basis, the study proposed the research model as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Proposed research model
3 Research method
3.1 Measurement design
To gather the data, the study structures questionnaire into five parts, as follows: (a) to measure respondent characteristics, the study utilised four items of questionnaire, consisting of year of student’s enrolment, age, gender, and sources of finance; (b) to measure student perceived orientation, the study utilised six indicators of the Collegiate Student Orientation Scale (CSOS) developed by Bristow and Schneider (2002); (c) to
measure higher education image, the study used six indicators proposed by Nguyen and LeBlanc (2001), Quoquab et al. (2013), Hussain et al. (2014); (d) to measure student perceived value, the study utilised seven indicators developed by Ledden et al. (2007), Ledden and Kalafatis (2010); and (e) to measure student satisfaction, the study adopted seven indicators proposed by Hennig-Thurau et al. (2001), Rojas-Mendez et al. (2009) and Li (2013). A questionnaire using a 5-point Likert Scale with the anchors of (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree was designed.
3.2 Data collection
This study focuses on private higher education in Aceh province, Indonesia. In the province, there were 109 private higher education institutions, comprising 10 universities, 48 academy, 48 higher education schools, and 3 polytechnics with the number of students totalling 53,065 (https://forlap.dikti.go.id/ mahasiswa/homerekap). Of 109 private higher education institutions, the largest seven private higher education institutions were selected as the sample of the study (see Table 1).
Table 1 Number of population and selected sample
No. The private higher education institution Number of students
Zone Population Sample 1. Universitas Serambi Mekkah, Banda Aceh 5675 92
Central
2. STKIP Al-Washliyah, Banda Aceh 694 11
3. Universitas Almuslim, Bireuen 5812 94 North
4. STIKES Cut Nyak Dhien, Langsa 424 7 East
5. Universitas Gunung Leuser, Kutacane 1063 17 Southeast 6. STKIP Muhammadiyah, Aceh Barat Daya 1220 20 South
7. STKIP Bina Bangsa, Meulaboh 3619 59 West
Total 18507 300
Note: STKIP = Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan Ilmu Pendidikan (College of Teacher Training and Education); and STIKES = Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Kesehatan (College of Health Science).
The selected students from private higher education institutions represented the entire 23 districts/cities in the Aceh province, Indonesia was selected using the multi-stage sampling technique. First, the study selected seven private education institutions using the cluster sampling technique, representing six zones (i.e., the Central zone, North zone, East zone, Southeast zone, South zone, and West zone) in accordance to the Provincial Law (Qanun) No. 19 (2013) on the Aceh’s spatial plan for 2013–2033. Owing a larger number of private higher institutions located in the Central Zone, as illustrated in T able 1, the study selected two private higher institutions from the area. Meanwhile, the rest of five private higher education institutions were selected from the other zones in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. These included only one private higher education institution from the North zone, East zone, Southeast zone, South zone, and the West zone, respectively.
Second, as illustrated in Table 1, of 18,507 students from seven selected private higher education institutions, 300 of them were chosen as the sample of study using the purposive sampling technique. The selected private higher education institutions have
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction 619 been accredited at least with the C category by the Ministry of Research and Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia. Additionally, the study only selects the second-year active students registered at those higher education institutions, as they have sufficient experiences and information about their education institutions. Finally, the selected 300 students from seven private higher education institutions were selected based on the proportionate random sampling technique. Of 300 students, 92 students were selected from the Universitas Serambi Mekkah, Banda Aceh; 11 students were from the STKIP Al-Washliyah, Banda Aceh; 94 students from the Universitas Almuslim, Bireuen; 7 students from the STIKES Cut Nyak Dhien, Langsa; 17 students from the University Lauser, Kutacane; 20 students from the STKIP Muhammadiyah, Aceh Barat Daya; and 59 students were from STKIP Bina Bangsa, Meulaboh.
The 300 number of selected respondents were representative enough and fulfils the minimum sample size for the SEM analysis. According to Hair et al. (2012), the minimum sample size of 100 is required for models containing five or fewer constructs, each with more than three items and with high item commonalities. Additionally, Hair et al. (2012) argued that the minimum sample size should be at least five times the number of indicators to produce a robust finding. As the study using 26 indicators to measure four variables (i.e., student perceived orientation, higher education image, student perceived value, and student satisfaction), thus the minimum sample size required in this study is only 130 (i.e., 5 26). Since our study explores interactions among four variables that are measured using 26 indicators in the estimated model, thus the 300 selected students as the respondents of the study are large enough to represent the entire population.
3.3 Data analysis
To gather the data, the study distributed the questionnaires to 300 students and all of them were completely filled up and returned (100% response rate). However, the questionnaires were validated by experts before they were distributed as the pilot testing and finally disseminated to all respondents from March to April 2017. Before the analysis of the primary data collected through the distribution of questionnaires, the validity, reliability, and goodness of fit tests were first conducted using the statistical software of SPSS and AMOS. As for the validity and reliability of instrument tests, the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used. After confirming all data were valid, reliable, and fit, then the relationships among variables were examined using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique. The following two SEM equations were analysed:
11 12 1
SPV SPO HEI (1)
21 22 23 2
SS SPO HEI SPV (2)
where SPV is the student perceived value, SPO is the student perceived orientation, HEI is the higher education institution image, SS is the student satisfaction, is the ii estimated coefficients of the variables, and is the structured error term. 1
The t-statistics are used to test Hypotheses 1 to 5. If , 11 , 12 , 21 and 22 are 23 different from zero, then the Hypotheses 1 to 5 are rejected, respectively, indicating that student perceived orientation and higher education image have a significant effect on student perceived value; and student perceived orientation, higher education image, and student perceived value significantly affect student satisfaction. Meanwhile, to test the indirect effect of student perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction through student perceived value (Hypotheses 6 and 7); the study uses the Sobel (1982; 1986) test based on Baron and Kenny (1986) approach. If .11 and 23
.12 are different from zero, and then the Hypotheses 6 to 7 are rejected, respectively. 23 These imply students’ perceived orientation and higher education image have a significant indirect effect on student satisfaction through student perceived value.
4 Findings and discussion
4.1 A brief overview of private higher institutions in Aceh, Indonesia
All universities in Indonesia, both public and private were under the authority and supervision of the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia. In Indonesia, there were 3151 universities where 3,068 (97.37%) of them were private and 83 (2.63%) were public. Of 3,206,153 university students in Indonesia, 2,298,830 (71.70%) registered as private universities’ students, while 907,323 (28.30%) students were enrolled at public universities nationwide.
To easily manage the huge number of private universities across 34 provinces nationwide, the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia has divided the private universities into 13 Higher Education Services Institutions (HESI). 109 private universities in Aceh Provinces, comprising 10 universities, 48 academy, 48 higher education schools, and 3 polytechnics with the number of students totalling 53065 was managed the HESI XIII.
4.2 Respondents’ characteristics
300 questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students of the selected private universities in Aceh, Indonesia. 243 (81.0%) questionnaires were completely filled up, while the rest 57 (19.0%) were incompletely filled up and could not be used for further analysis. The majority of students (37.4%) enrolled the university in the year 2014, 35.8% in the year 2013, 22.6% in the year 2015, 2.5% in the year 2012, and only 1.6%
enrolled the university in the year 2011.
In terms of gender, the majority of them were female (60.1%), while male students were only 39.9%. 58.0% of them with the age 20–21 years old, 25.5% with the age 22–23 years old, and the rest 16.5% with the age of more 23 years old. Finally, in the view of the source of financing, 78.2% of the students were financed by their parents, 16.9% were self-financed, and only 4.9% were financed by sponsorships (scholarships).
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction 621 4.3 Results of confirmatory factor analysis
Using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), only 3 indicators of student perceived orientation were found valid as their loading values were greater than 0.05 (Hair et al., 2012). These indicators included: give me a good experience in studying; feels that the student are important; and feels that the needs of students are as important as the needs of the lecturer and staff. Similarly, 3 indicators of higher education image also found to be valid, namely: higher education is known as the right place for study; higher education has a better image; and the higher education is famous in my place.
As for student perceived value, Five indicators were found to be valid: I am interested with the content of the lessons; I learn the new things from the study; the course contents contributes to the high value of my education; Academic guidance from the lecturer has an effect on the value of my education; and taking study at the higher education improves my self-confidence. Meanwhile, for the student satisfaction, 6 indicators were found to be valid to measure the variables: enrolled in the university was a wise choice; satisfied with decision to attend at the higher education; satisfied with the service; service quality exceeded my expectations; study in this university is suitable with my wish; and the content of the study is suitable with my wish. All these valid indicators were then used to measure the interactions among the variables using the SEM technique.
Finally, the indices of the goodness of fit were calculated to ensure the best fit estimated model measurement. The goodness of fit indices showed that the measurement model was acceptable which chi-square of 179.302 (p-value = 0.000), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) of 0.917, Adjusted Goodness of Fit (AGFI) of 0.888, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of 0.973, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.049, Tucker- Lewis Index (TLI) of 0.967, and Cmin/df = 1.587. Thus, the proposed estimated model was found to be fit since most of the indices (i.e., GFI, CFI, and TLI) were greater than its cut off value of 0.90 and RMSEA was lesser than its cut off value of 0.08. Overall, the SEM equations estimated were found to be the good fit model as their estimated values were greater than their cut-off values, except for the AGFI. According to Williams et al.
(2018), it is hard to find all the goodness of fit indices meet all the goodness of estimated SEM, particularly as the size of the study sample is large, as the case of our study. In short, our estimated models could provide robust findings.
4.4 Estimated SEM
The findings of estimated SEM are illustrated in Figure 2 and its hypotheses testing summary is presented in Table 2. As observed from Figure 2, all hypotheses both measuring direct effect (Hypotheses 1 to 5) and indirect effect (Hypotheses 6 and 7) were rejected at least at 10% level of significance. These findings indicated that student perceived orientation and higher education image have a significant effect on student perceived value (Hypotheses 1 and 2); student perceived orientation, higher education image, and student perceived value significantly affected student satisfaction (Hypotheses 3, 4, and 5); and student perceived orientation and higher education image significantly and indirectly affected student satisfaction via student perceived value (Hypotheses 6 and 7).
Figure 2 Findings of estimated SEM
Student Satisfaction
(Z)
Higher Education Image (X2)
Student Perceived
Value (Y) Student
Perceived Orientation
(X1)
0.236***
0.587*** 0.230***
0.427***
0.054**
0.229***
0.138***
Note: ***p < 0.01, and **p < 0.05.
Table 2 summarised the hypothesis testing (level of statistical significance) and the size of estimated direct and indirect effects of the exogenous variables on their endogenous variables. As shown in Figure 2 and Table 2, the student perceived orientation ( = 0.230, p < 0.01) and higher education image (11 = 0.587, p < 0.001) was found 12 positively and significantly affecting the student perceived value. Next, the study also documented a positive and significant influence of the student perceived orientation, ( = 0.427, p < 0.001), higher education image (21 = 0.229, p < 0.05), and the student 22 perceived value ( = 0.236, p < 0.001) on student satisfaction at the private higher 23 education institutions in the province of Aceh, Indonesia.
Table 2 Summary of hypothesis testing
Hypothesis Path direction Path coefficient Remark
H1 Student perceived orientation → student perceived
value 0.230 Significant
H2 Higher education image → student perceived value 0.587 Significant H3 Student perceived orientation → student satisfaction 0.236 Significant H4 Higher education image → student satisfaction 0.229 Significant H5 Student perceived value → student satisfaction 0.427 Significant H6 Student perceived orientation → student perceived
value → student satisfaction
0.054
(0.230 0.236) Significant H7 Higher education image → student perceived value
→ student satisfaction
0.138
(0.587 0.236) Significant As for the indirect effects, the study found that the student perceived orientation and higher education image positively affected student satisfaction through the student perceived value ( . 11 = 0.054, p < 0.05). Finally, the study also provided evidence of 23 the positive significant effect of the higher education image on student satisfaction through the student perceived value ( . 11 = 0.138, p 0.05). 23
Mediating effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction 623 4.5 Implications and recommendation of the study
As shown in Figure 2 and Table 2, the student perceived orientation was found positively and significantly affecting student perceived value. This finding indicated that the private higher education institution should provide a good orientation toward the students, such as by providing high-quality services and treating students of equal important academic community similar to other administrative and teaching staff. This finding is in harmony with previous studies by Valenzuela et al. (2010) and Blocker et al. (2011).
The study also found a positive significant influence of higher education image on student perceived value. This empirical evidence showed the importance of maintaining a good image of the private higher education institution to gained higher student perceived value. This could be done, inter alia, by sharing information about the intra- and extra- curricular activities regularly both to the academic community and public as well. The private universities should initiate to conduct regular academic events such as seminar series, field visits, visiting professors, students’ debates, academic festivals, and other academic competitions as efforts to create a good academic atmosphere and subsequently promote the good image of the institutions. Our finding of the positive relationship between higher education image and student perceived value is in line with the findings of Blocker et al. (2011) and Hussain et al. (2015).
Next, the study also documented a positive and significant influence of students’
perceived orientation on student satisfaction, a finding similar to the findings of Lee et al.
(2010), Ndubisi (2012) and Chung et al. (2014). This finding implied that to enhance student satisfaction, the university should take an initiative to make all academic-related decisions matching the needs of the students with the vision and missions of the institution (Bristow and Schneider, 2002). This could be done by providing the useful, interesting, and interactive classes, assisting students to realise their aspirations, providing good quality of academic services, sharing precious experiences of being the success in studying, and treating students as the valuable assets of the academic community.
Furthermore, the study also documented that the higher education image has a positive and significant effect on student satisfaction. This finding is similar to the findings of Hart and Rosenberger III (2004), Chen (2010), Jiao et al. (2012), Temizer and Turkyilmaz (2012) and Dib and Alnazer (2013). This finding implied that private universities should promote their image to enhance student satisfaction by projecting a good picture of institutions (Hatch and Schultz, 1997), highlighting regularly the achievements of students, administrative and teaching staff and other academic communities either within the campus or off-campus. This is done to create a positive, innovative, and modern image of the institutions as the famous and right place to study (Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001; Quoquab et al., 2013; Hussain et al., 2014). Having these feelings, the students would enjoy a higher level of satisfaction to study in universities with a better image.
Finally, as for the direct effect of student perceived value on student satisfaction, the positive and significant influenced of the former variable on the latter variables was documented. This finding is similar to empirical evidence documented by Webb and Jagun (1997), Alves and Raposo (2006), Ledden et al. (2007), Brown and Mazzarol (2009), Seiler et al. (2013) and Giner and Rillo (2016). This finding implied that to
further promote student satisfaction; private universities should boost their values perceived by students. This could be done, inter alia, by charging proportionate tuition fee with the services provided, providing innovative lessons’ contents and interactive ways of teachings, and teaching relevant soft skills to enhance self-confidence of students (LeBlanc and Nguyen, 1999; Ledden et al., 2007; and Ledden and Kalafatis, 2010).
As for the indirect effects, the study found that the student perceived orientation and higher education image positively affected student satisfaction through the student’s perceived value, and the higher education image positively affected student satisfaction through the student perceived value. These findings implied that the enhancement of student perceived value by promoting student perceived orientation and higher education image would consequently improve student satisfaction. Thus, efforts taken by the universities should be focused on the enhancement of student perceived value by offering new courses that are relevant to the need of the job market, such as digital and high-tech related courses, enhancing services quality, and providing academic guidance for students to preparing themselves to enter job market or creating their own business immediately after graduation (Ledden et al., 2007) would automatically promote student satisfaction.
5 Conclusions
This study empirically explored the mediating effect of student perceived value on the influences of student perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction in the private higher education in Aceh, Indonesia. Of 53,065 students at the 109 private higher education institutions, 300 students from seven private higher education institutions were selected as the respondents of the study using the multi-stage sampling technique. The data were gathered by distributing questionnaires to the students and analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).
The study documented that the student perceived orientation and higher education image have significant effects both on student perceived value and student satisfaction.
The student perceived value was also found to significantly mediate the effects of the student’s perceived orientation and higher education image on student satisfaction. These findings implied that to further providing greater student satisfaction, the private higher education institutions should enhance the student perceived orientation and higher education image as well as the student perceived value.
To provide more robust and comprehensive findings on this issue, further studies could consider more exogenous and mediating variables and cover a broader sample of the study, including more private universities across the 34 provinces in Indonesia.
Comparing student satisfaction studying at the private universities between/across the regions/islands and contrasting it with student satisfaction studying at the public universities in the country could also provide a better picture of the determinants of student satisfaction toward services provided by higher education institutions.
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