This study aims to present a case study of the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction at Hanoi University. A student satisfaction model is proposed and confirmed based on the survey data and statistic from Hanoi University students. The model was applied to identify and analyze factors which affect the final results as well as graduates’ satisfaction. Practical recommendations are then submitted to Hanoi University to improve student satisfaction.
Chi n l c ngo i ng xu th h i nh p Tháng 11/2014 VAI TRỊ CỦA MƠI TRƯỜNG XÃ HỘI VÀ HỌC THUẬT ĐỐI VỚI HỌC TẬP VÀ SỰ HÀI LÒNG CỦA SINH VIÊN: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU ĐIỂN MẪU TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀ NỘI Lơng Ng c Minh, Hoàng Gia Th, Nguy n Th Minh Ti n, Tr n Quang Anh* Trường Đại học Hà Nội * Tác giả liên hệ, e-mail: anhtq@hanu.edu.vn Tóm t t: Trong giáo dục ñại học, sinh viên ñược Abstract: In higher education, students are often xem khách hàng sử dụng dịch vụ giáo dục viewed as the main customers who use training services; therefore research on student satisfaction model in higher education plays a meaningful and important role in improving quality of training services in Vietnam This study aims to present a case study of the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction at Hanoi University A student satisfaction model is nhà trường Nghiên cứu hài lòng sinh viên mơi trường giáo dục đại học Việt Nam có ý nghĩa quan trọng việc nâng cao chất lượng dịch vụ giáo dục ñại học Việt Nam Bài viết trình bày nghiên cứu điển mẫu vai trị mơi trường xã hội học thuật học tập hài lòng sinh viên Trường Đại học Hà Nội Bài viết ñưa mơ hình hài lịng sinh viên đánh giá mơ hình số liệu điều tra khảo sát thực tế Trường Đại học Hà Nội Mơ hình áp dụng để phân tích nhân tố ảnh hưởng ñến kết học tập mức độ hài lịng sinh viên, từ đưa số kiến nghị nhằm nâng cao chất lượng dịch vụ đào tạo nhà trường Thơng qua phân tích kết khảo sát, báo vẽ nên tranh tồn cảnh đánh giá sinh viên ñối với hoạt ñộng Trường Đại học Hà Nội, phân tích điểm mạnh, điểm yếu hệ thống ñào tạo nhà trường Đây thông tin quan trọng giúp nhà trường cải tiến chất lượng giảng dạy thời gian tới T khóa: Sự hài lịng sinh viên, mơ hình phương trình cấu trúc, hành vi sinh viên, môi trường học thuật, môi trường xã hội proposed and confirmed based on the survey data and statistic from Hanoi University students The model was applied to identify and analyze factors which affect the final results as well as graduates’ satisfaction Practical recommendations are then submitted to Hanoi University to improve student satisfaction A descriptive analysis of experiment survey results has portrayed an overall picture of student evaluation of Hanoi University’s activities, pointing out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges in the training system of the university This is significantly important information to support the university administrators in upgrading and improving teaching quality in the near future Keywords: student satisfaction, structural equation modeling, student behavior, academic environment THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT LEARNING AND SATISFACTION: A CASE STUDY AT HANOI UNIVERSITY Introduction After a long period of highly centrally-planned economy, Vietnam has changed to a socialistoriented market economy through a ‘doi moi’ (renewal policy) since the 1980s The national educational system has been starting to transform itself in the new direction where education is to satisfy not only government organizations' demands but also other economic components' In 2005, the Vietnamese Government issued a resolution on “Innovative, fundamental and comprehensive reform of the higher education for the period of 2006-2020" (Resolution No 05/NQCP dated 02 November, 2005) One of the most important directions in the higher education 319 Ti u ban 2: Đào t o chuyên ngành b ng ngo i ng reform plan is a shift from elite education to mass education Previously, the number of universities in Vietnam was small, mainly public universities with limited training courses Therefore, attracting learners or training to meet the needs of the society has not been paid due attention to in tertiary education in Vietnam Currently, the number of universities in Vietnam has increased; and the educational programs in each university are also varied From 1990-2012 more than 200 new universities were established in Vietnam and also the number of joint training programs with foreign University has been rapidly increasing The competition among the universities in improving the quality of education and attracting students become more evident Investigating the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction is an important activity in modern higher education The level of student satisfaction as well as its impact factors is always considered as important information to the management board for making decisions Adee (1997) analyzed the relationship between customer satisfaction and perceived quality in higher education, he also pointed out the importance of this relationship in higher education environment Adee proposed a model in which student satisfaction depends on the disconfirmation of student expectation when they use the education service Also, student satisfaction has an impact on student’s decision of re-use of this service after graduation In his research, Voss C et al (2005) proposed a customer satisfaction model, in which activities of human resource management and production process have an impact on employee satisfaction and service quality; at the same time, employee satisfaction and service quality have positive impacts on customer satisfaction The paper confirmed that this relationship exists in higher education environment Helgesen and Nesset (2007) studied the factors which influence student loyalty in higher education This research proposed a structural model which illustrates the relationship between service quality, facilities, 320 university image, student satisfaction and student loyalty Alves and Raposo (2007) proposed a student satisfaction model, in which they emphasized there exists a relationship between student expectation, university image, student satisfaction and student loyalty They also pointed out that student loyalty has an impact on student behavior after their graduation, such as promoting the university or introducing the university to their friends (words of mouth) One of the problems of this model is that it draws too many relationships between model’s components This leads to the difficulty of using this model in practice, such as difficult to give suggestions to the university upon this model Lin C-P, Tsai YH (2008) analyzed data from a private school in Taiwan and confirmed a student loyalty model, in which student loyalty is influenced by perceived quality of teaching services, perceived quality of administrative services and perceived signal of retention This work uses the perceived quality made by students as the representation of the quality of that service This work used a procedure of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for data analysis (Anderson, 1988) In this model focuses on student loyalty; therefore, the student satisfaction model is not mentioned in the model Until now, the research on the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction in the real environment of Vietnam's tertiary education is still very limited The above satisfaction models can not be applied directly to the Vietnam higher education environment because the organizational structure in Vietnam higher education is different We need a student satisfaction model that matches with the organizational structure of university in Vietnam, so that the model can be practically used in Vietnam This study aims to present a case study of the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction at Hanoi University The major contributions of this paper are threefold Firstly, it proposes a relevant student satisfaction model with respective hypotheses Chi n l c ngo i ng xu th h i nh p Then, thanks to experiment survey data from Hanoi University students, the model is confirmed to be appropriate Secondly, the model was applied to analyze factors affecting students’ academic results as well as satisfaction of graduates This is the basis to submit recommendations to the University to improve student satisfaction effectively Thirdly, the survey results have portrayed an overall picture about student evaluation of Hanoi University’s activities, revealing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges in the training system of Hanoi University They are significantly important to support university administrators in upgrading and improving teaching quality in the near future The rest of this paper is organized as follows Section presents research design, including proposed hypotheses and modeling and research methodology Section analyzes descriptive statistics of the factors in the proposed model Section discusses the model confirmation analysis Section concludes the paper and discusses the direction for the future work Research Design 2.1 Hypotheses Higher education is a service, in which the university provides education services and students who are customers take advantages from these services In the process of using education services, students have the direct interaction with teachers Thus, the experience with teachers such as student - teacher interaction and teaching methodology used in classes result in student achievements, including knowledge and skill development As a result, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1: Experience with teacher has a positive impact on student achievement The education programs describe the knowledge and skill structure that teachers want to transfer to the students Students take one of the education programs at university under the instruction of teachers Therefore, the education program design and structure, as well as lesson Tháng 11/2014 plans and learning activities will affect student achievement of knowledge and skill development This leads to hypothesis 2: H2: Education program has a positive impact on student achievement Beside the classroom learning hours, students must also communicate with administrators in university to register the course, inquire or consult the program Moreover, facilities including classrooms, learning device is one of the important elements of the higher education environment The facilities help teachers interact with students more effectively Therefore, supportive environment such as facilities, administration social interaction in campus environment will affect student achievement, resulting in hypothesis 3: H3: Supportive environment has a positive impact on student achievement Customer satisfaction is created during the customer experience of using the products or services In higher education, student satisfaction is obtained when student feel that they achieve new knowledge and skill and personal development during their time in the university Hypothesis is presented below: H4: Student achievement has a positive impact on student satisfaction Customer satisfaction may lead to whether customer will continue to use this product or service or not In higher education environment, although students are one-time customers, their satisfaction of education service maybe an important reason that they continue to promote the university, introduce to their relatives and friends to study in the university or establish cooperation between students and the university after graduation such as providing job opportunities, scholarships or research So, there comes hypothesis 5: H5: Student satisfaction has a positive impact on student behavior of promoting and cooperation with the university after graduation 321 Ti u ban 2: Đào t o chuyên ngành b ng ngo i ng When student feel that they learn a lot during their study in the university, they probably tend to promote the university, introduce their relatives and friends to study in the university or establish cooperation between student and the university too So, hypothesis is made: H6: Student achievement has a positive impact on student behavior of promoting and cooperation with the university after graduation The above hypotheses are presented in the following student satisfaction model in Figure 1: Figure Student satisfaction model 2.2 Structural Equation Modeling Figure Structural equation modeling for student satisfaction model To test these hypotheses, this paper plans to use the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach to analyze how real data fit the proposed model SEM is a generally statistical modeling technique which is widely used in the science of behavioral research It can be seen as a combination of factor analysis, regression and path analysis The SEM is considered to work well with structural theory, which is presented by the hidden elements (Anderson, 1988) Based on the model, this paper designs student satisfaction model with added observed variables in the form of SEM as shown in Figure The factors Teacher, Program and Support are represented by the variables ξ1, ξ2 and ξ3, respectively These variables are latent variables, 322 their values and the parameters λ and δ decide the value of the observed variable X using the following equation (1) X = Λx ξ + δ (1) The factors Achievement, Satisfaction and Behavior are represented by the variables η1, η2 and η3 These variables are also latent variables, their values and the parameters λ and ε make the value of the observed variable Y using the equation (2) Y = Λ yη + ε (2) Moreover, the variables ξ1, ξ2 and ξ3 are exogenous variables, while the variables η1, η2 and η3 are endogenous variables The cause-effect relationship between these exogenous variables Chi n l c ngo i ng xu th h i nh p Tháng 11/2014 and endogenous variables are represented by the parameters γ and ζ, and the relationships among endogenous variables are represented by the parameters β and ζ These relationships form the following equation (3) η = Β η + Γξ + ς (3) Given the observed variables X, Y measured by a survey data, the SEM will find all the parameters which make the equations (1), (2) and (3) best fit the survey data States Results of survey supporting administrative and supervisor teachers are measures to evaluate their own student participants The first NSSE was experimented in 1999 and there are more 1.400 universities and colleagues in Canada and the United Stated who have accepted to take part in since NSSE was first run in 2000 (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2012) The survey questionnaire list NSSE 2013 has 19 query groups related to experience and satisfaction of student during training course in 2.3 Student Perceived Experience and university In each questionnaire group, there are Satisfaction Survey about to 10 multiple choice questions Quantities Hanoi University has conducted surveys on of answer options for each question are or graduates from all teaching in English programs After researching and considering typical features The questionnaire has been selected from list of of specialized major in Hanoi University, examining queries National Survey of Student question groups which are the most appropriate to Engagement (NSSE) This is a testing tool to condition and environment of Hanoi University assess participation level related to academic in are selected, covering 51 single questions universities, colleges in Canada and the United Description of questions is shown in Table below Table Groups of questions in the survey questionnaire Type Description # of # of questions answers Higher Order Learning (HOL) Reflective and Integrative Learning (RIL) Program Design and Structure (PDS) 4 Student Faculty Interaction (SFI) 4 Effective Teaching Practice (ETP) Quality of Social Interaction (QSI) 7 Supportive Environment (SEN) Knowledge, Skills, Ability, and other characteristics (KSAO) development 10 Satisfaction (SAT) Total Descriptive Analysis 3.1 Data Collection and Processing The authors have conducted a survey on graduate students of main majors which are instructed in English including Faculty of 51 Information and Technology, Business Administration, Tourism Management, Accounting, Financial Banking and International Studies Department in Hanoi University 439 samples were collected Quantity of collected response of each major is presented in Table 323 Ti u ban 2: Đào t o chuyên ngành b ng ngo i ng Table Number of collected responses of each major/studies No Major/ Studies Number Information and Technology 50 Business Administration 67 Financial Banking 143 Accounting 110 Tourism Management 36 International Studies 29 Unidentified Studies/ Major Total in other group, there are only answers To unify outcomes of each question group, the research has normalized value of QST queries from to into to 4, normalization formula is as below: QSI = (QSI − 1) + (4) SPSS and LISREL statistical tools are used to compute the descriptive statistics, variable correlation and solving the SEM problem 3.2 Descriptive Statistics 439 In Hanoi University, Financial Banking and Accounting are the most crowded departments In contrast, Tourism Management and International Studies are the least crowded faculties In 439 collected responses, there are 94 ones which were conducted by male and 345 ones by female Also, this is typical gender ratio in Hanoi University All collected responses are imported into Excel file, where each column is labeled by a question Each row contains an answer result of a student Each question is notated by group of question and its order in this group For example, in Higher Order Learning (HOL) group, there are questions, whose notation is respectively HOL1, HOL2, HOL3, HOL4, and HOL5 Due to answer result of question group, Quality of Social Interaction (QSI) has values where as To compute the descriptive statistics of all factors in our model, the authors replaced the values of questions in a group by the mean value of that group For the case of KSAO, we grouped the 10 survey questions into smaller group including: English (ENG), Knowledge (KNL) and Skill (SKI), as shown in Table Table The groups of questions in KSAO Group Questions in KSAO English (ENG) KSAO1, KSAO2 Knowledge (KNL) KSAO3, KSAO4, KSAO8, KSAO9 Skill (SKI) KSAO5, KSAO6, KSAO7, KSAO10 This activity can reduce the number of factors from 51 to 11 The author then assigned the groups to each factor in the model The assignment is shown in Table Table Assignment of questions to each factor Teacher (TCH) Program (PRG) Support (SUP) SFI, ETP HOL, RIL, PDS SEN, QSI Achievement (ACH) Satisfaction Behavior (SAT) (BHV) ENG, KNL, SKI SAT1 SAT2, SAT3 groups assigned to them The authors calculated Let the variables TCH, PRG, SUP, ACH, SAT the descriptive statistics values of TCH, PRG, and BHV respectively represent for the factors SUP, ACH, SAT and BHV values Collected Teacher, Program, Support, Achievement, outcomes are shown on Table Satisfaction and Behavior in our model These variables were computed as the mean of the 324 Chi n l c ngo i ng xu th h i nh p Tháng 11/2014 Table Descriptive Statistics Mean Maximum Minimum N Std Deviation TCH 436 1.25 4.00 2.4666 48576 PRG 438 1.53 4.00 2.6024 34147 SUP 431 1.42 4.00 2.6997 42144 ACH 427 1.50 4.00 2.9234 42064 SAT 415 3.09 613 BHV 417 1.00 4.00 3.3729 64350 Valid N (listwise) 410 As can be seen, in factors Teacher (TCH), Program (PRG) and Support (SUP), students give highest rate to Support (SUP) factor – accounting for 2.70 whereas factor Teacher (TCH) get the lowest rate which stands for 2.46 As a result, developing teacher team requires more focus and attention in the near future The descriptive statistics for different majors are shown in Figure From this Figure, we can see that teachers in Tourism program are most highly evaluated The Business Administration and International Studies programs get highest scores while the Finance and Banking program get lowest score Students in Business Administration and Tourism programs think that they acquire the best knowledge Students from International Studies program are the most satisfied with the program Figure Descriptive statistics for different majors Model Confirmation Analysis 4.1 Variables Correlation SPSS Statistics tool was used to calculate correlation between TCH, PRG, SUP, ACH, SAT and BHV values Collected outcomes are shown on Table 325 Ti u ban 2: Đào t o chuyên ngành b ng ngo i ng Table Correlations Pearson Correlation TCH Pearson Correlation PRG 218** 000 000 000 000 000 436 436 431 427 415 417 558** 417** 506** 256** 215** 000 000 000 000 436 438 431 427 415 417 519** 417** 429** 310** 273** Sig (2-tailed) 000 000 000 000 000 N 431 431 431 423 411 413 391** 506** 429** 435** 437** Sig (2-tailed) 000 000 000 000 000 N 427 427 423 427 415 417 215** 256** 310** 435** 496** Sig (2-tailed) 000 000 000 000 N 415 415 411 415 415 414 218** 215** 273** 437** 496** Sig (2-tailed) 000 000 000 000 000 N 417 417 413 417 414 Pearson Correlation BHV 215** N Pearson Correlation SAT 391** 000 Pearson Correlation ACH 519** Sig (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation SUP 558** Sig (2-tailed) N BHV SAT ACH SUP PRG TCH 000 417 ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) factor (0.218), PRG factor (0.215) and SUP factor As can be seen on Table 6, there are some (0.273) All correlation value is smaller than 0.4 typical features: Firstly, ACH factor has big difference with TCH, PRG, SUP, ACH, SAT and Therefore, the correlation is the first step to BHV factors The correlation has the value of 0.4 state that model shown on Figure is reasonable and more (Correlation with TCH factors is little To be clearer on the affirmative sentence of the smaller but it is possible to round up 0.39 into 0.4) model, the researcher will use SEM solution in the Besides, SAT and BHV factor has big difference following sections between their correlations (0.496) Consequently, 4.2 Model Confirmation H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 assumptions are We assigned the list of observed variables (X, initially confirmed Y) to the factors in the SEM for student Secondly, SAT factor does not have direct satisfaction model as follows: X11=SFI, X12=ETP, correlations with TCH factor (0.215), PRG factor X21=HOL, X22=RIL, X23=PDS, X31=SEN, (0.256) and SUP factor (0.310) Similarly, BHV factor X32=QSI, Y11=ENG, Y12=KNL, Y13=SKI, also does not have direct correlations with TCH Y21=SAT1, Y31=SAT2 and Y32=SAT3 SIMPLIS 326 Chi n l c ngo i ng xu th h i nh p programming language was used to present the SEM problem in LISREL The obtained results Tháng 11/2014 after running SIMPLIS program on LISREL tool is demonstrated in Figure Figure The obtained result of SEM In this program, the maximum number of iterations is set up at 250; however, only 35 iterations are used to get the above outcome This means that student satisfaction model has quickly converged to a positive result Also, it proved that student satisfaction model and hypothesis recommended in section are highly accepted From the resulted model in Figure 4, it can be seen that student evaluate relationship between teachers and students (FSI, 0.33) rather than training method (ETP, 0.29) In term of program’s factors HOL, RIL and PDS, student assessments are quite the same (respectively 0.25, 0.29 and 0.27) Students evaluate facilities, administrative procedure department (SEN, 0.37) higher than other social interaction in university (QSI, 0.28) It is suggested that Hanoi University should pay more attention and effort to the improvement of QST in the near future In terms of behavior, students tend to be ready for promoting Hanoi University (SAT2, 0.61) rather than implementing cooperation with University Administrates (SAT3, 0.46) Possibly, when students graduate, they have not had the ideas in their mind how they will incorporate with university in the near future yet Besides, students assess English level, major knowledge and skills that they achieved are quite equivalent The statistics represent for respectively 0.32, 0.39 and 0.38 It has shown that outcome result of Hanoi University student is very good According to relationships in Figure 4, Achievement has a big influence on Satisfaction (0.4835) In other words, two factors have large correlation Therefore, effect of Satisfaction and Achievement elements on Behavior are quite similar (0.3658 and 0.3266 respectively) The main structural equation is as follow: Achievement = 0.3152 ∗ Teacher + 0.3226 ∗ Program + 0.0977 ∗ Support According to equation (5), contributions of Teacher and Program to Achievement of students are about approximately (for example, for Achievement are 0.3152 and 0.3226) Besides, they are significantly higher than contribution of Support (0.09774) In other words, to increase level of satisfaction of student efficiently, it is (5) necessary to invest in improving teacher qualifications and program quality In practice, the cost of program development is much lower than the cost of human resource development; therefore, the investment on academic program is the most efficient 327 Ti u ban 2: Đào t o chuyên ngành b ng ngo i ng Conclusion In this study, the researcher has reviewed the literature related to customer satisfaction model in higher education Based on typical features of Hanoi University, hypotheses and student satisfaction model were proposed Also, the SEM method has been implemented to confirm the student satisfaction modeling and the hypotheses Experiment data including 439 samples was collected by a survey of specialized major students at Hanoi University in 2013-2014 Analyzed outcomes have shown that student satisfaction model and the recommended hypotheses are totally accepted This model makes a significant contribution to Hanoi University in explaining and clarifying the factors that have big influence on student’s results as well as their satisfaction to university According to the model, contributions of teacher team and program quality to study outcome and student’s satisfaction are quite equivalent and remarkable higher than contribution of supporting manipulation In other words, to increase level of satisfaction of student efficiently, it is essential to invest in improving teacher qualifications and program quality In additions, in terms of statistics, model has shown strength, weakness in current field of Hanoi University Interactions between teacher and student are evaluated more importantly than teaching methodology of teachers Social interactions in university have not assessed as well as facilities or administrative procedures department Students evaluate that they achieved English qualification, specialized knowledge and soft skills equally It means that graduated Hanoi 328 University students are comprehensive, suitable with standard output of program and meet social demands A limitation of this paper is that the experiment data is mainly collected from survey data of students at Hanoi University In the future, the authors will expand this research to the data of the other universities in the higher education system in Vietnam REFERENCES Anderson JC and Gerbing DW (1988) ‘Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach’ Psychological Bulletin Vol 103, No pp 411~423 Adee A (1997) ‘Linking student satisfaction and service quality perceptions: the case of university education’ European Journal of Marketing Vol 31, no 7, pp 528~540 Alves H, Raposo MR (2007), Conceptual Model of Total Student Satisfaction in Higher Education Quality Management 2007(18), pp 571-588 ， ， ， Helgesen O, Nesset E (2007), Images, Satisfaction and Antecedents: Drivers of Student Loyalty? A Case Study of a Norwegian University Corporate Reputation Review 2007, 10, College pp 38-59 ， ， Lin C-P, Tsai YH (2008), Modeling Educational Quality and Student Loyalty: A Quantitative Approach Based Quality and Quantity 2008 (42), pp 397-415 ， ， National Survey of Student Engagement (2012) Promoting Student Learning and Institutional Improvement: Lessons from NSSE at 13 Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research Voss C et al, (2005) ‘Managerial choice and performance in service management - a comparison of private sector organizations with further education colleges’, Journal of Operations Management 23(2), 179~195 ， ... practically used in Vietnam This study aims to present a case study of the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction at Hanoi University The major contributions... the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction is an important activity in modern higher education The level of student satisfaction as well as its impact factors... loyalty; therefore, the student satisfaction model is not mentioned in the model Until now, the research on the role of social and academic environment on student learning and satisfaction in the