Importance and Satisfaction with Institutional Factors among Students in Technical Colleges in Georgia

The researcher's purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the student's identification of importance and satisfaction with institutional factors (those factors that the institutions can control) of Georgia's technical colleges and to determine the extent of the differences between importance of and satisfaction with institutional factors. For the study, two databases were analyzed that were comprised of data from Georgia's technical college students who took the Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory questionnaire. To explain the findings from the analysis, discussion topics were derived from the themes and trends and were presented to two, five person focus groups of students who attended a technical college in Georgia for discussion. The researchers findings revealed that students ranked the factors of instructional effectiveness, registration effectiveness, and academic advising/counseling as the most important factors within the institution. The researcher found that service excellence, safety and security issues, and campus support services were ranked by technical college students in Georgia as factors with which they were least satisfied. Students reported the least differences between the importance and satisfaction of the factors in the categories of safety and security, admissions and financial aid, and registration effectiveness reflected the greatest differences. The focus group expressed discontent with safety and security and the student services department of the institutions. The students are most satisfied with the faculty of the college. Administrators and decision makers may use the information garnered by this research to promote the areas that students feel are important and those in which students are satisfied, while focusing on correcting the items within the institution in which students are not satisfied. Policies and procedures can focus on factors that students feel are important such as instructional effectiveness, registration effectives, and academic advising and counseling. Coupled with this, policies should bolster factors that students are satisfied with such as institutional effectiveness, student centeredness, and concern for the individual while adding or changing policies that affect the factors that students are not satisfied; academic services, safety and security, and campus support services.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Year dc:date.available

2007

Author dc:creator

• Stephens, Richard Alexander

Contributors dc:contributor

• Abebayehu Tekleselassie
• Linda M. Arthur

• ETD
• Institutional factors
• Importance
• Satisfaction
• Technical colleges
• Students

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/275

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1275