Research on Students

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STUDENT

SATISFACTION BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND

PRIVATE FUNDED UNIVERSITIES

IN KLANG VALLEY, MALAYSIA

SIVARAJAH NAGALINGAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT MULTIMEDIA

UNIVERSITY

DECEMBER 2007

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COPYRIGHT

The copyright of this project belongs to the author under the terms of Copyright Act 1987

as qualified by Multimedia University Regulation 4.1. Due acknowledgement should

always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from this project.

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this BMP 6164 Research Project is my original work except for

quotations, statements, explanations and summaries, in which I have mentioned their

sources. No portion of this Research Project has been submitted in support of any

application for any other degree or qualification of this or any other university or institute

of learning.

Student's Signature: ______________________ Date: 14th December 2007

Student's Name: N.Sivarajah Student ID: 1051200070

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement I

Abstract II

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

Chapter 2: SELECTED LITERATURE REVIEW 13

Chapter 3: MENTHODOLOGY 38

Chapter 4: ANALYSIS 46

Chapter 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 69

REFERENCE 76

APPENDIX I 78

APPENDIX II 85

APPENDIX III 86

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to thank those special people who have contributed

their precious time, skill knowledge and support to ensure the successful completion of

my dissertation.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr.A.S Santhapparaj for giving me all the moral

support, motivation, encouragement and importing his great knowledge from time to

time, from the day I started writing my proposal and always guiding me to the right

direction. Thanks for being there for me. I am gifted to have been introduced to a special

person like him.

Most importantly, greatest appreciation to my parents, who have supported me from

both mentally and physically during the process of completing dissertation.

Not to forget my wife, Nora Lynette Nagalingam, my daughter Natesa and my son

Narayan for support and help with the computer work. Thank you all very much.

With this opportunity, I would like to dedicate my piece of work to my family members

and my wife. Their insight support is very much appreciated.

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ABSTRACT

An investigation and survey were conducted to determine student satisfaction in the

education industry. This dissertation would place emphasis on student’s satisfaction

between private and government universities. A total of 192 respondents participated in

this survey.

The objective of the study is to analyze the satisfaction level of students in education

industries (universities) specifically the service quality.

The findings showed that there were higher level student satisfactions in the private

universities compared to government universities.

In general, the usage of SERVQUAL instrument was found to be highly relevant to this

type of study. Although high levels of student satisfaction were found, there were certain

interesting differences in opinions between private university students and government

university student that was inconclusive.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

One of the fastest growing industries in Malaysia is education. If one takes into account

Government recurrent expenditure on facilities and manpower to support institutions of

higher learning and the provision of scholarships, as well as private spending on

education , both locally as well as overseas, the Malaysian education market is worth

about RM3 billion annually.

(NST, 15 Aug 1992)

Malaysian Government has evolved rapidly from time to time to increase the standard

and quality of education. This is to produce knowledgeable manpower which is needed

for today’s society.

However, every one of us has a risk in education. Places in the local universities are

limited and very competitive. The government faces the same problem every year,

whereby there are always too many applicants applying for the seats but the government

finds it impossible to register/accommodate all the applicants due to limited resources in

the local government universities. Thus, growth of the private sector is encouraged.

The Malaysian Education System

The Malaysian Government has always given for Education. The growth, development

and progress of a nation are very much dependent on national education attainments. The

government always made it a point to provide standard education for its citizens. The

access to education is a fundamental right for every Malaysian child of school going age

at six years old.

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The Malaysian Education Policy

The Malaysian Education Policy is founded on the principles of the “RUKUNEGARA”.

This philosophy embraces a holistic and integrated approach in imparting knowledge ,

skills , balanced development of the whole person , i.e. body (physical), soul (intellect

and emotions), spirit , good virtues and positive attitudes, hinging on a strong belief and

devotion to God.

Malaysians Government has taken a step by impending tabling of the Private Higher

Education Bill in Parliament to enable the establishment of foreign university branch

campuses in Malaysia. It has been one of the fastest growing industries in Malaysia today.

The government has taken responsibilities to invite premier universities with good

financial background, infrastructure and expertise in the Science and Technology field to

set up a base or branch campus. This step will definitely provide mare tertiary education

opportunities for the Malaysian for the Malaysian community and not only that but create

healthy competition among public universities.

Under the Private Higher Education Institution Act, private educational institutions would

help the country facilitate the establishment of foreign universities of high standing, thus

attracting foreign students worldwide to study here. It will also provide Opportunities for

Malaysians to obtain their degrees locally.

The Malaysian Government has called on the private sector to play a bigger role in

providing education. Some of the private local corporations such as Tenaga National

Berhad, Petronas, Telekom Malaysia, Edaran Automobile National (EON), Permodalan

National (PNB) AND Renong have announced plants to set up institutions and

universities. Some have already set up their universities.

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Private Education in Malaysia Covering pre-school, primary, secondary and tertiary levels, private education is well

established in Malaysia. Culturally and traditionally, education has always taken priority

in the social order of Malaysians. Premium quality education is in good demand in the

country. To meet the educational needs, demands and the aspirations of the Malaysian

community, private educators provide an important and often indispensable service and

an alternative to public education.

A National Accreditation Board has been set up to ensure quality and control in private

education. The proposed tabling of the Private Universities Act and review of

immigration laws for student entry visas are the first steps taken by the Government to

achieve this vision.

Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996

It is the Act to provide for the establishment, registration, management and supervision

of, and the control of quality of education provided by private higher educational

institutions and for matters connected therewith.

“Private Higher Educational Institution” means an education an institution, including

university or a university college or branch campus, approved and registered under this

Act, which is not established or maintained by the Government.-

(a) providing higher education

(b) providing distance education ; or

(c) providing higher education or distance education in affiliation, association or

collaboration with:-

(i) a private higher educational institution approved and registered under

this Act;

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(ii) other higher educational institutions-

a) Whether or not established under other written laws’ or

b) Whether within or outside Malaysia;

(iii) a university or university college established under this Act

(iv) a university or university college established under the Universities

and Universities College Act 1971

(v) other Universities and University Colleges-

a) whether or not established under other written laws’ or

b) whether within or outside Malaysia;

(vi) branch campus; or

(vii) a professional body whether within or outside Malaysia leading to the

award of professional membership of a such professional body.

The Education Industry As it is recession proof as well as it is no wonder that education has become an attractive

opportunity not for local operations but also overseas universities that have increasingly

become dependent on full time paying overseas students.

The case for education is now obvious and urgent in view of the development of the

economy and Vision 2020.The ability and effectiveness of education, training and

retraining to upgrade the education levels and skills of the workforce will have profound

effect on the Malaysian Economy’s capacity to adjust and grow competitively in the

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years ahead. The continued reliance on the manufacturing sector and a sophisticated

service industry to achieve economic development uncouthly lead to an increased demand

for education and training.

Rapid economic growth has led to the problem of labor market tightening and labor

shortage. Not only that but these resulted to be a shortage of skilled labor. In the short

run, the physical shortage may be resolved through the impart of foreign workers and to

increase the participation rate of women in the labor force. However, long term

production of skills and a literate workforce cannot be solved this way.

A rise in the education level, particularly at the professional, technical and vocational

levels is a pre-requisite. Furthermore, if education and training are to play a significant

role in stimulating productivity, it must be relevant to and focus on the needs of the

industrial sector.

Background of University of Malaya

UNIVERSITY MALAYA, the first University of the country, is situated on a 750-acre

(309-hectare) campus in the southwest of Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.

The University of Malaya grew out of a tradition of service to the society. Its

predecessors, the King Edward VII College of Medicine established in 1905 and Raffles

College in 1929 has been established to meet urgent demands, one in medicine and the

other in education. When the two came together to form the University of Malaya in

October 1949, this was so that they might perform together an even greater service – to

help lay the foundations of a new nation by producing a generation of skilled and

educated men. Hence the University of Malaya was established on 8 October 1949 as a

national institution to serve the higher education needs of the Federation of Malaya and

Singapore.

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The growth of the University was very rapid during the first decade of its establishment

and this resulted in the setting up of two autonomous Divisions in 1959, one located in

Singapore and the other in Kuala Lumpur. In 1960, the government of the two territories

indicated their desire to change the status of the Divisions into that of a national

university. Legislation was passed in 1961 founding the University of Malaya on the 1st

of January 1962.

The University motto, “Ilmu Punca Kemajuan” (Knowledge is the Key to Success)

reflects the philosophy of the University in its constant Endeavour to seek knowledge in

all fields to produce successful graduates and a successful a nation. It offers a wide range

of programmers at Certificate, Diploma, Degree and Postgraduate levels.

Background off University Putra Malaysia

University Putra Malaysia can trace its origins to the School of Agriculture which was

officially instituted on 21 May 1931 by John Scott; an administrative officer of the Straits

Settlements. The School was located on a 22-acre spread in Serdang.

The School offered two courses then, a three-year diploma course and a one-year

certificate course. By 1941, the school had successfully trained 321 officers – 155

diploma and 166 certificate holders.

The School was declared the Agricultural College of Malaya on 23 Jun 1942 by Sir

Edward Gent, the Governor of the Malayan Union. In 1948, it was proposed that the

College be upgraded to a university. However, the proposal was shelved due to the

declaration of Emergency in the middle of the year.

In 1960, the Faculty of Agriculture, University Malaya was established and on 1 January

1962, a statute was approved appointing the Agricultural College of Malaya one of the

governing bodies of University Malaya.

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The establishment of agricultural university offering bachelor level programmes was put

forth by the Deputy Prime Minister then, Tun Haji Abdul Razak Hussein on 31

March 1969 at the opening ceremony of the additional wing to the Agricultural College in

Serdang, Selangor.

The establishment of University Pertanian Malaysia finally became a reality and was

enacted as an Incorporation Order of the Duli Yang Maha Mulia Seri Paduka Yang Di

Pertuan Agong under the Universities and University College Act 1971.It was published

in the Government Gazette P.U October 1971. The merger of the Agricultural College of

Malaya with Faculty of Agriculture, University Malaya led to the establishment of

University Pertanian Malaysian.

University Pertanian Malaysia started its academic programme in July 1973 with three

main faculties – Faculty of Agriculture, Faculty of Forestry, and Faculty of Veterinary

Medicine and Animal Science. Besides the three faculties, there was also a Basic

Sciences Department. The total number of students then was 1,559.

Now, University Pertanian Malaysia consists of eleven faculties and six centers. These

are Faculty of Modern Language, Faculty of Human Economic and Management, Faculty

of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of

Education Studies, Faculty of Forestry, Faculty of Biomedicine and Health Science,

Faculty of Agriculture, Faculty of Science and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Food

Science and Biotechnology while the Centres are Matriculation Centre, Centre for Social

Science Studies and Management, Centre for Science and Applied Studies, Centre for

Extension and Continuing Education, Computer Centre and Islamic Centre. It comprises

of 34,000 students and about 3,600 academic and support staff.

On April 3rd, 1997, the University Pertanian Malaysia was named as University Putra

Malaysia by the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

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Background of University Tun Abdul Razak

UNITAR has its roots in the vast experience, vision and mission of the Chairman and

Chief Executive Office of KUB Malaysia Berhad, Datuk Hassan bin Harun.It began in

1964 when he enroller for a teaching stint in the Kelantan English School, a private

school in Kelantan, for three months. This experience made him dream to someday build

and manage a Malay private school. In 1967, Datuk Hassan joined Islah English School,

another private school in Kelantan. In May 1968, he joined Institute Pendidikan for

another two years, but his dream was still not realized.

It was not until the end of 1969 that Datuk Hassan came close to fulfilling his aspiration.

With a few friends who had just graduated from university, he set up Maktap Adabi, This

marketed the beginning of the Adabi Group. Datuk Hassan left Adabi in 1971 to pursue a

university education. In 1976, he returned to Adabi with a renewed spirit and vision, and

he set about bringing the Adabi Group to new heights of distinction.

He set up another private institution of higher learning, Institut Teknologi Tun Abdul

Razak (ITTAR) in 1991. ITTRAR is now one of the leading Bumiputera – owned

provides of education in the country, offering more than nine diplomas, certificate and

prematriculation programmes.

From ITTAR, Datuk Hassan envisioned another monumental reject: to set up and manage

a futuristic private bumiputra – owned university. He realized that there has to be a new

approach to the setting up and managing of such a university. For this to take place, a

paradigm shift had to be engineered in the educational system. The concept of a virtual

university, where student and faculty members engaged in learning and teaching activities

separated by distance and time, was still a new concept, and had to be pursued with

thought and care.

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In early 1996, ITTAR and KUB IT, two wholly –owned subsidiaries of KUB Malaysia

Berhad, formed a project team to study Datuk Hassan’s vision and to come out with

original concepts and plans. These were then presented to the Prime Minister, the

Honorable Dato Seri Dr.Mahathir Mohamad. Our Prime Minister agreed with the concept

and proposal. They were then presented to the Minister of Education, the Honorable Dato

‘Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak on 6 December 1996.

On 22 January 1997, the Minister of Education accepted the concepts and proposal of the

virtual university, which was then named as ‘University International Tun Abdul Razak’.

The name was later changed to Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR).

On 6 November 1997, Dato ‘Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak and the family of the late

Tun Abdul Razak, agreed to the name of Tun Abdul Razak, our Father of Development,

as the name of the university.

On 18 December 1997, the formal invitation to set up the university was given to KUB

Malaysia Berhad. The university was subsequently launched on 21 December 1998. It

received the letter of establishment from the Ministry of Education in February 1999. In

January 2000, UNITAR was formally registered with the Ministry of Education.

The establishment of this university is indeed a great achievement for Malaysia. It plays a

significant part in the national agenda which aims to liberalize and democratize education

in this country.

Background of Universiti Tenaga Nasional

UNITEN started in 1976 as Institut Latihan Sultan Ahmad (ILSAS), which served for

many years as a corporate training institute for Malaysia’s Nasional Electricity Board

(LLN). In 1990, LLN was corporative and renamed as Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). In

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1994 TNB transformed ILSAS into an institute of higher learning and renamed as Tenaga

Nasional Berhad (TNB).In 1994 TNB transformed ILSAS into a higher learning and

renamed it as Institute Kejuruteraan Technology Tenaga Nasional (IKATAN). The

institute offered

Academic programmes at undergraduate and graduate levels were on a twinning basis

with local and overseas universities.

In 1997, the instituted became University Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), one of the first

private universities to be set up in Malaysia. UNITEN is operated as a wholly owned

subsidiary company of TNB.

Universiti Tenaga Nasional provides quality education to prepare students for positions in

industry, commerce and academia. Educational programmes are offered by the

University’s various colleges: College of Engineering, College of Business Management

and Centre for Languages and General Education.

All programmes are designed to satisfy the academic requirement of Lembaga Akreditasi

Negara (LAN) while engineering and accounting degree programmes are designed to

satisfy the requirements for membership to the relevant professional bodies.

We continue to offer training and consultancy services for organization, especially those

organizations whose main businesses are related to electricity generation, transmission,

distribution and related services. A wide range of technical and technology training is

provided by Instituted Sultan Ahmad Shah (ISAS) WHILE Consultancy services in

quality process / systems and management / administrative training is provided by the

Consultancy and Training Bureau.

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Problem Statement It is known that there are so many Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia to cater for

the education needs, demands and aspiration of the Malaysian community. Private

educators provide an important and often indispensable service and an alternative to

public education. It is that only about 30% of post SPM students get a chance to further

their studies in the Government Education Institutions whereas the remainder have look

for an alternative into the Private Higher Institutions.

These developments have encouraged the growth of Private Higher Institution in the

country. The main question here is whether these growths in the number of private

colleges and universities have maintained the quality of education in the country or

adversely affected it.

Research Objectives The main objective of this research is to assess student satisfaction of the education level

between Governments funded universities and Private Universities in the Klang Valley.

The specific Objectives are:-

To study the current level of satisfaction of students studying in private and public

universities in terms of infrastructures and quality of input they provide.

To analyze differences in level of satisfaction of private and public university

students, if any.

To suggest possible modification that could be very important in maintaining and

Delivering quality education. New ideas could be implemented or introduced to boost

up the satisfactory level of students.

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Limitation and Scope of Research

Every research, however planned, is undertaken under certain limitation.

First and foremost, time and cost constraints are the main problem in conducting the

research. Due to that, I have narrowed my scope by conducting my research within

the Klang Valley only. Namely, I will conduct/choose two local Government

Universities and two Private Universities.

There were many difficulties which I had to face in terms of obtaining data from the

Ministry of Education, National Accreditation Board and The Private Education

Department. The people in charged were always not available for interview purposes

and I was l left with no other alternative but to settle for secondary data.

This research will mainly target the student of first degree with the same area study

i.e. Business, Law, etc. This is for assessing the satisfaction level of the students of

the same course or area of study.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

In Malaysia’s quest to become a centre for educational excellence, the Malaysian

Government has introduced a number of measures as part of the reformation process

within the education system, affecting all levels including higher education. In the case of

the latter, while greater focus is given to first degree enrolment, of late attention is also

given to postgraduate education. This has been unavoidable because of the country’s

focus to enhance its manpower requirements at the degree level.

(Anuwar Ali, Director of Higher Education, Ministry of Education)

The supply of higher education today is not the monopoly of the public sector. The

changing economic conditions and the inability of public education institutions to provide

adequate places in the universities have prompted the birth and growing number of

private institutions. This review covers some of the issues in a mixed system that includes

the student price response in higher education. According to Hoecake (1982), efficiency

is the achievement of maximum total benefit to society from the resources employed in

higher education such as faculty, staff and student time, equipment and physical facilities.

A price represents any connection between an individual’s choices in uses of resources

and the degree of fulfillment of his or her own achievements.

The study will look into the criteria such as faculty, staff and physical facilities and as a

bottom line to satisfy the student in the future. Looking into the above criteria will

overcome student’ dissatisfaction.

(Fair-weather, Jones S. (1989) “Academic Research and

Instruction, the Industrial

Connection ‘Higher Education, 60: 388-403)

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The Satisfaction Process

(Source: Rust R.T, Zahorik A.J., and Keiningham T.L (1994) Return an

Quality measuring the financial impact of your company’s Quest for

Quality. Probus Publishing Company, cambridge, England.)

From the figure above, expectation has a direct effect on perceived quality; perceived

Quality also updates the expectations (either raise or lower), meanwhile the satisfaction

result primary from disconfirmation and expectation.

EXPECTATION PERCEIVED QUALITY

OBJECTIVE QUALITY

DISCONFIRMATION

SATISFACTION

FUTURE EXPECTATION

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LINGKAGE OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TO SERVICE

The voice of customer is the right carried by each customer that companies should not

ignore in decision making. However companies or organization attempt to incorporate

The ‘voice of the customer’ into the service delivery process, they quickly discover a

need for diagnostic information that predicts how service changes will effect customer

satisfaction, revenues and profits. (Rustetal, 1994)

As noted by Oliver, 1993, satisfaction implies a feeling of fulfillment. Customer 1980) In

the years of 198.

Oliver’s framework

Satisfaction is a summary cognitive and effective reaction to a service incident.

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction results from experiencing a service quality encounter and

comparing the encounter with what was expected. (Oliver, views satisfaction as a state of

fulfillment related to reinforcement and arousal. Law arousal fulfillment is described as

‘satisfaction as containment’ which assumes only that time the service performs

satisfactorily in an ongoing, passive sense.

Suppose a student wants to continue his studies in a higher institution, private universities

are not cheap as government funded universities. Besides, there are a lot of different

universities in the country whereby a difficult choice has to be made. Each university has

their own competitive advantage, which are very confusing to the student. Thus it may be

considered as complex decision making.

There are two ways to understand student’s behavior – to analyze the steps they will go

through before purchasing or getting the products or services, and what are the factors

that will influence them in choosing the product or services. In this research, we could use

the hierarchy of effects made by Lavidge and Steiner to study the process whereby the

individual student will go through the six steps to select the products and services.

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THE HIERARCHY OF EFFECTS MODEL

AWARENESS

KNOWLEDGE

LIKING

PREFERENCE

CONVICTION

PURCHASE

(Source: Lavidge and Steiner, 1961)

STAGE LAVIDGE AND STEINER

MODEL

COGNITIVE

AFFECTIVE

CONATIVE

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According to Valarie S.Flokes, consumer expectancies play a central role in

understanding valuations of services quality. Thus, the predominant models of service

quality and customer satisfaction emphasize the role expectancies. When the services

performance is below the customer’s expectancy, quality is judged to be poor and vice

versa.

It is also stated that many service providers maintain that they provide a consistently high

standard. However, service is intrinsically difficult to standardize. As a result, consumers

will almost inevitably encounter variance in the outcomes they received form service

providers. In addition, consumers may take their past experiences as a basis to forecast

the future service performances.

WHAT IS CONSUMER SATISFACTION?

According to Kardes (1999), “Consumer behavior is the study of human responses to

products, services and the marketing of products and services.” In Hoyner and Mac Innis

(2001), consumer satisfaction is not only concerned about buying a product, but also

includes consumers’ use of services, activities and ideas. In order to understand the way

consumers mane the choices they do, there are three stages of human responses, which

include cognitive, effective ad cognitive responses heads to be studied.

Cognitive can be defined as what is known as a perception towards product or services,

the beliefs or knowledge about the issues concerned. While affective is some kind of love,

which are the feeling and valuation the products or services? The last element of

Consumer satisfaction or behavior – cognitive is defined as behavioral intentions from the

result of the cognitive and affective stage. According to Ratchford (1987), the thinking

(cognitive) and feeling (affective) aspects refer either to categories of motives or to

modes of information processing. Cognitive motives stress the need for being adaptively

oriented to the environment and for achieving a sense of meaning. Affective motives

stress the need to reach satisfied feeling states and to attain goals.

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Different consumers may have different needs & wants. Thus, the criteria they are into

may differ from each other. Consumers may differ in forms of the amount they spend, the

time they take in making decisions, the kinds of service they think is necessary, the stages

that they go through when decision making takes place and other from this point we

know that consumer satisfaction is difficult to analyze and study because different

consumers have different choices of criteria.

STUDENT AS A CUSTOMER

The student is the “raw material” but also the ‘primary consumer’ .Without students there

is no education and in an environment where students can afford to choose, only

providers who are focused on customers and their needs will attract the best recruits and

in large quantities thus enabling them achieve superior competitive standards.

According to Dr.Mohamed Zairi (1994), a commitment to student as the ‘primary

customer’ must be demonstrated through all activities and the building of a value added

Chain, including academic and support function. The customers are the starting point of

all activities, in industry for instance prior to designing new services, many organizations

started to use a technique called Quality Function Deployment (QFD) for establishing

customer wants and developing a translation process of the wants through focusing on

the right activities and developing strength in all of them, via a continuous improvement

process. QFD has been used in education to assess student (customer) satisfaction with

courses delivered.

The 7 tools of Total Quality Management (TQM) can also be used to achieve customer

satisfaction. A five – phase improvement process to courses delivered has been

successfully adopted to improve courses. The five stages are based on Deming’s Plan,

Do, Check and Act (PDCA). They include.

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1. Identify (gaps, variations) from student’s feedback

2. Analyze (Instructional process)

3. Plan (through QFD, introduce action to improved quality)

4. Implement (action)

5. Evaluate (customer satisfaction surveys)

Tools and techniques of TQM are very powerful building a culture focused on customer

and customer satisfaction. QFD and the 7 simple tools as demonstrated by the above

example can lead to effective outcomes. A focus on the customer however has to be

sustainable and will not merely require change in existing procedures; it is very much

behavioral. This is the only way forward for being an effective as competitive provide of

educational needs Identifying students as the primary customer and striving to meet their

need in an ethically correct strategy. Recognizing other important customer, such as

employers, reflects the reality that post secondary – education organizations are

constantly engaged in complex efforts to satisfy many parties. But it is vital that

education institutions recognize that conflicts in the needs and expectations of different

customer should be resolved in favor of the students.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The education industry is very competitive – competition for students and eventually for

Resources and for funds. Quality management is an important criterion in meeting the

needs of its customers. The reputation and image of an organization can be changed

through improved quality. Quality is the most important of the competitive weapons.

Attention to quality improves performance in reliability, delivery, and price.

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For any organizations, there are several lessons to be learned about reputation;

1. It is built upon the competitive element of quality, reliability, delivery and

price, of which quality has become strategically the most important.

2. Once an organization acquires a poor eruption for quality, it takes a very

long time to change it.

3. Reputation, good or bad, can quickly become national reputations.

4. The management of the competitive weapons, such as quality, can be learned

like any other skill, and used to turn around a poor reputation, in time.

WHAT IS QUALITY? Quality is that which satisfies a customer or consumer. Definition varies, but then, quality

is simply meeting the customer requirement, in this situation, and the customers are the

students. The British Standards Institute expresses this notion more formally:

“Quality is the total of features and characteristic of a product or service that bear on its

ability to satisfy stated or implied needs”.

A working definition of quality might be:

“Quality refers to the standards that must to achieve specified purposes to the satisfaction

of customer.”

By consistently meeting customer requirements, we can move to a different plane of

satisfaction – delighting the customer. The ability to meet the customer requirement is

vital, not only between two separate organizations, also within the same organization.

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MEETING THE REQUIREMENT

The marketers (the owners of the institutions) must of course understand not only the

needs of the customer but also the ability of their own organization to meet them. In order

to meet the internal customers and suppliers needs, the transfer of effective

Communications is very important. To achieve quality throughout an organization, each

person in the quality chain must interrogate every interface as follow:

CUSTOMERS

1. Who are my immediate customers?

2. What are their true requirements?

3. How do or can I find what their requirements are?

4. How can I measure my ability to meet the requirements?

5. Do I have the necessary capability to meet the requirements? (If nor, then what

must change to improve the capacity?

6. Do I continually meet the requirement? (If not, then what prevents this from

Happening, when the capability exists)

SUPPLIERS

1. Who are my immediate suppliers?

2. What are my true requirements?

3. How do I communicate my requirement?

4. Do my suppliers have the capability to measure and meet the requirement?

5. How do I inform them of changes in the requirement?

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PROCESS

It is important to check the process – how it works. Any university, after having answered

the above questions, has to look at the elements in their process. It can be briefly looked

at as follow:

INPUTS OUTPUTS

S Material Service C

U Procedures U

P Method S

P Information T

L Including PROCESS Information O

I Specification M

E Skills E

R Knowledge R

S Training Paperwork S

Ellis, Roger, (1993), Quality Assurance for University Teaching, (1st ed.)

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Inputs have to be good, in order for the output to achieve a particular quality. In order to

ensure that, there must be quality control and quality assurance.

WHY QUALITY CONTROL AND QUALITY ASSURANCE?

Quality control is essentially the activities and techniques employed to achieve and

maintain the quality of a product, process or services. It includes a monitoring activity,

but is also concerned with finding and eliminating causes of quality problems, so that the

requirements of the customer, in the case of higher education institutions are the students

and also the parents of parents of these students – are continually met.

Quality assurance, is broadly the prevention of quality problems through planned and

systematic activities (including documentation)? These will include the establishment of

good quality management system and the assessment of its’ adequacy, the audit operation

of the system and the review of the system itself.

QUALITY STARTS WITH MARKETING

The marketing function of all private universities must take the lead in establishing the

true requirements for the service. Having determined the need, marketing should define

the market sector and demand, to determine the service features as grade, price, quality,

timing and so forth. At the same time, a quality must be development and publicized and

understood at all levels of the organization. Quality, according to the dictionary, is:

“A degree of excellence but of relative nature”

It is sometime described in terms of excellence – that is, the highest quality – or in terms

of fitness for purpose. However, a product that conforms consistently to an appropriately

pre – defined specification or standard can be said to be a quality product. Failure

consistently to meet specification would cast doubt on the product’s quality. Setting and

30

meeting, a higher grade specification would also result in a quality product, but of better

quality than that of the former.

Thus, quality is set by an education within its own specification, or mission statement

having decided on this specification, the mechanisms and procedures must be in place to

meet consistently. If they are not, and the university falls short of it’s predefined

standards then it cannot be said to be a quality institution and must work to a lower grade

specification.

The maintenance of the appropriate level of quality within an educational institution is a

major issue, which has only recently received attention it deserves. Senior management

teams within private universities have often been perplexed when faced with an array of

different management tools purporting to relate to the maintenance of quality and,

sometimes, have lost sight of the two main objectives.

These are:

1. to maintain the quantity of the student, experience;

2. to maintain the standards achieved by students.

In short, whatever organization arrangements and procedures that is introduced into

college which are geared to maintain and improve, for example, managerial performance,

administrative systems of staff motivation.

CUSTOMER’S PERCEPTION OF SERVICE QUALITY.

Valarie A.Zeithaml stated that there are three fundamental ways services differ from

goods in terms of how they are produced, consumed and evaluated. Firstly, services are

Basically intangible because they are performance and experiences rather than objects,

precise manufacturing specifications concerning uniform quality can rarely be set.

Moreover, when what is being said purely a performance, the criteria customers use to

evaluate it may be complex and difficult to capture precisely.

31

Second, services with high lab our content are heterogeneous because their performance

Varies from one to another, from producer to producer, form day to day. Example, quality

of interaction between lecturer and students can rarely be standardized to ensure

uniformity the way quality of goods produced in a car manufacturing plant. Thirdly,

production and consumption of many services are inseparable. Here quality is based

during the services is being delivered.

THE CUSTOMERS VIEW OF SERVICE QUALITY

10 DIMENSIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY

Dimension Definition

Tangibles Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel

and communication material

Reliability Ability to perform the promised services dependably

And accurately.

Responsiveness Willingness to help customers and provide prompt

Services.

Competence Possession of the required skills and knowledge to

perform the services.

Courtesy Politeness, respect, consideration, and friendliness of

contact personnel.

Credibility Trustworthiness, believability, honestly of the service

provider.

Security Freedom from danger risks or doubt.

Access Approachability and ease of contact.

Communication Keeping customers informed in language they can

Understand and listening to them.

Understanding with

Customer

Making the effort to know customers and their

Needs.

(Zenithal, Parasuraman & Berry, (1990). Delivering quality

Services (pp. 111). New York: The Free Press)

32

Later it was modified into 5 dimensions:

5 DIMENSIONS OF SERVICES QUALITY

DIMENSION DEFINITION

Tangibility Is the ability or confidence of personnel

When dealing with customer by providing

Them the best service.

Reliability Is the ability to deal with customers

Complaints or suggestion and performs

The promised service accurately on time.

Responsiveness Is the degree of how much effort that

Personnel had put to approach the

customers

Customers in providing proper service.

Assurance Is knowledge and courtesy of employees

And their ability or confidence in

delivering Its service.

Empathy Is the ability of services provider to show

Their cares and respect to customers.

(Berry, L.L., Conant, J.S., & Parasuraman A. (1991), A Framework

For conducting a service marketing audit. Journal of the Academy of Marketing

Science, 19, 245-255)

33

THE IDEA OF HIGHER EDICATION The pluralism of views regarding the purposes of higher education is the inevitable and

proper reflection of a democratic society, in which no single ideology is driven forward

by the state but in which institutions of higher education are increasingly encouraged to

carve out their own niche and mission for themselves in the totality of higher education

provision as it takes on the from of a quasi – market.

Concept of higher education Four if the key conceptions of higher education which can be found below debates on

quality. These four dominant concepts of higher education underlie contemporary

approaches to, and definitions of quality.

1. Higher education as the production of qualified manpower

This concept sees the higher education as a process in which student count as

“products” as outputs having a utility value on the labor market. On this

conception, quality tends to be identified as a function of the ability of Student to

succeed in the world of work, as measured by their employment rates and, more

especially, their career earnings (or ‘rates of economic return’).

2. Higher education as a training for a research career

Those members of the academic community who are they active research frame

the definition of higher education. Quality, on this conception, is measured less In

terms of the achievement of students than in the research profile of the staff. There

is an assumption that the related input and output measures – the number of

fellows of the Royal Society, the amount of research income and the publications

Output – are themselves indicative of education quality.

34

3. Higher education as the efficient management of teaching provision

On this conception, institutions are understood to be performing well if their

throughput is high, given the resources at their disposal. Their total efficiency is

what is in question here, not only how many students they can accommodate, but

also with what velocity their students are successfully propelled into the wider

world. As the dictionary indicates, ‘efficiency’ is the ratio of the energy output of

machine, device, etc. to the energy supplied to it. According, here, indicators of

performance are sought which can capture this sense of efficiency. Non –

completion rates and proportion of students obtaining ‘good degrees’ are drawn

on. So too unit cost, especially as reflected through student: staff ratios

themselves, as well as financial data, come into play as key means of assessing the

performance of institutions. If these indicators are giving the appropriate message,

then an institution that does well by them account itself as one o high quality.

4. Higher education as matter of extending life change.

This final contemporary conception is none other than that of the potential

consumers of higher education. On this conception higher is valued education is

valued for its ability to offer opportunities to participate in the dominant in the

institutions and to enjoy the benefits of modern society. The key indicator of

institutional achievement here lies in the percentage growth Student numbers and

in the range of entrants. In particular, do they several a widening of the intake to

include students from socio – economic backgrounds normally under-represented

in higher education?

In the UK, the universities are predominantly associated with conception two, but also to

a lesser extent with one and three; the universities are very much associated with one,

three and four. Indeed, while there are differences across these four conceptions of higher

education, they also have much in common.

35

In all four conceptions, higher education is a total system, in which student enter as

inputs, are processed and emerge as outputs. So the dominant approaches to quality are

characterized by a consensus of system approach in which higher education becomes a

black box: it does not matter what goes on in the black box as long as the quantity of

desired inputs and outputs is achieved. When faced with an analysis of quality – however

elaborately up in technical jargon about institutional systems, international comparisons

and lists of performance indicators

– a key issue is: what is underlying conception of higher education which informs this

particular approach to quality?

Is it a conception based on a thorough – through set of sustaining argument? Or. Instead,

is the approach or quality based on a relatively shallow conception of higher education?

In other words, are we being faced with a rational approach to quality (prepared to enter

into debate) or are we, rather, faced with a piece of ideology (an unconsidered reflection

of social interests?)

Talk of quality in higher education is not fully honest. Those who use the language of

‘quality’ do not always make the explicit the conception of higher education form which

their approach to quality springs.

This is readily understandable, for often they have not made their ideas about the

purposes of higher education explicit to themselves. Consequently, proposals for quality

assurance and quality improvement tend to become the party lines of the different groups.

As we have seen earlier, the contrasting approaches to quality party derive quite honestly

From legitimately held but alternative concepts of higher education. Higher education is a

complex public good in modern society, giving rise to different definition of its purpose.

The question, then, is: can we uncover any set of principles basic to quality that is

grounded in the essential character of higher education; or, in these post modern and

pragmatic times, are we reduced merely to shrugging our shoulders and saying ,anything?

36

The author concludes that, the struggle is not be given up temporarily. There may be

some guiding ideas that we should hang on to. Contained within the idea of higher

education are the notions of critical dialog, of self – reflection, of conversation, and of

continuing redefinition.

They do justice to the idea of higher education because it is through such a process of the

Mind that a higher level of understanding – and ultimately, of action – is achieved. These

Ideas are helpful in understanding the process of educational development that we hope

to see in the individual student; and also to understand the process by which every

institution of higher education should conduct its affairs, learn about itself and improve

the quality of its’ work.

CURRENT SCENARIO OF HIGHER EDUCATION Anuwar Ali (Director of Higher Education, Ministry if Education) stated that currently

there are a few public funded universities in Malaysia, with the earliest being established

in Kuala Lumpur in 1962 and most recent being upgraded from public funded collage into

a university. They are as follows:

University of Malaya

University Sains Malaysia

University Putra Malaysia

University Kebangsaan Malaysia

University Teknologi Malaysia

University Utara Malaysia

37

University Malaysia Sarawak

University Malaysia Sabah

International Islamic University

University Pendidikan Sultan Idris

University Institut Teknologi Mara

University Tun Abdul Razak

In line with the country’s overall development the Malaysian educational scene has

witnessed substantial changes over the last three decades, affecting the whole spectrum of

the education system including higher education higher education. As indicated above,

not only do we see an increase in the number of universities, but more importantly, a

significant increase in the number of Malaysians given the opportunity to enter

undergraduate courses in our own universities. However, in view of the many ,change

affecting tertiary education during the last few years, it is also a desirable that local

universities respond to such changes. In line of this, the government has initiated a

number of important changes; and some of the significant milestones over the last two

years includes.

1. The establishment in 1996 via on Act of Parliament, of the Nasional Council for

Higher Education which will, among other things, plan and formulate national

Policies for the development of higher education.

2. The incorporation in 1997 of a National Accreditation Board, which is entrusted

With the functions of formative policies on standards and quality control in

respect of programmers conducted by private institutions of higher education.

38

3. The creation of a special fund called the Tabung Perbadanan Pendidikan Tinggi

Nasional with an initial allocation of RM100 million in 1997 for the purpose of

Providing loans for students pursuing higher education in Malaysia.

4. The corporation of University of Malaya on March 1, 1997, thereby giving

Greater financial autonomy and flexibility in the management of the university as

Well as paving the way for the corporation of other public funded universities.

According to Anuwar Ali, the last two decades have witnessed greater participation of the

private sector in proving alternative avenues for tertiary education is random with the

ever – increasing demand for such education among the young population. Thus, the

private sector is assuming a more active role at all of education, a more active role at all

levels of education, with a major expansion of higher education. During the last decade

education sector therefore saw a substantial increase in the

Number of private colleges, including those introducing twinning programmers with

overseas universities particularly in the United Kingdom, United States and S Australia.

At the same time, public corporations and large privatized entities are encouraged to

expend their existing training facilities and establish new institutions of higher learning to

counter first degrees. Public corporations such as Petroleum Nasional Berhard (Petronas)

and Telekom Malaysia Berhard (TMB) have established universities that offer degrees

level courses.

The Tenaga Nasional Technology Institute (IKATAN) has been upgraded into a

university namely, University of Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN). The establishment of these

private universities has been facilities have been facilitated by the enactment of the

Private Institutions of Higher Education Act 1996.

39

Anuwar Ali also stated that the focus of institutions of higher education has been on

expanding their enrolment to meet the nations, manpower requirements; increasing

emphasis is being given to quality and relevance in the conduct of their care business of

teaching, research and development activities and publication. To support the science and

technology strategies of the government, research activities are increasingly geared

towards satisfying industry needs on market – oriented R & D and the generation of

indigenous technologies.

SUMMARY AND JUSTIFICATION

These factors are very important because so far there is no literature on this matter and it

is different among Malaysian universities which highlight the importance of this research.

In short, to summarize all the above stated selected literatures from various sources, what

is common among all of them, is that all of them are stressing on the importance of

customer satisfaction, quality of service and customer value. All universities are called to

the adhere to the requirements above that are made by the government and the same time

not to neglect the requirements of the students and the general public. Basically 5

dimension of service quality or ‘SERVQUAL’ comprise of tangibility, reliability,

responsiveness, assurance and empathy are used with modification to measure service

quality offered to students in this research.

40

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLGY

This chapter describes how this research was conducted in detail. Both primary and

secondary data were used to obtain information for this research. Sources of primary data

were use obtained from interviews and questionnaires; meanwhile, secondary data came

from the Internet, references, journals, newspapers and brochures.

Research objectives:

The main objective of these researches is to assess student satisfaction of the education

level between Government Funded Universities and Private Universities in the Klang

Valley.

The specific objectives are:-

To study the current level of satisfaction of students studying in private and public

universities in terms of infrastructures and quality of input they provide.

To analyze differences in level of satisfaction of private and public university students, if

any.

To suggest possible modification that could be very important in delivering quality

education. New ideas could be implemented or introduced to boost up the satisfactory

level of students.

41

PRIMARY DATA

Primary data is the first hand data that has not been collected by past researchers. It is

very expensive and time consuming. However, the data collected is accurate, relevant and

sufficient to the research problem. There are many ways to achieve the primary data, such

as interviews, questionnaires, observation, experimentation and so forth.

In this research, I used the interviews and questionnaires to get the primary data.

QUESTIONNAIRES

According to chisnall (1997), questionnaire is a method to obtain the specific information

for the problem at hand. In this research survey, version of SERVQUAL modified and

adopted self – administered questionnaires were used to collect new and fresh data from

the respondents.

A majority of the questions were set in close – ended form, as it would not bring any

inconvenience and difficulties to the respondents. It would also save the time of the

respondents. In other words, it was very time efficient. There is one in opened – ended

Form whereby it allows the respondents to write down their comments or ideas to

improve the situation on the universities.

Some questions were set in Likert – scale form so as to make the questionnaires more

attractive and not so boring. Easy and simple wordings were used for better understanding

of questions. It was much easier for the respondents to answer, as they understood the

questions.

The above-mentioned methods were adopted with degree of confidence because of my

follow ups done on these universities and also based on experience and interesting in the

field of higher education.

42

SECONDATY DATA

Secondary data is the data that was collected by persons or agencies for purposes other

than solving the problem at hand. It is the easiest and cheapest way to get the information.

However, secondary data will not be sufficient all the times as it could be outdated,

irrelevant and inaccurate. Thus, primary data helps to solve the problems created by

secondary data.

In this research, I gained the secondary data in many ways, such as Internet, journals,

references, newspapers and brochures. All the sources allow me to get the explanation,

definitions of the key terms, and the various models to evaluate and apply to this research.

INTERNET

The internet is an easy way to get information. The only thing I had to do is to get the

right web page address. There are numerous information on the website but not all are

relevant and reliable to the research problem. Thus, I had to screen through all the

information on the net and select only the important, relevant and reliable information to

apply into the research problem. The universities were obtained from the Internet. Beside,

other electronic marketing journals were also viewed to find some related studies done by

other researchers.

JOURNALS

Journals are another source of obtaining relevant information for the research problem .I

Found some similar studies that was done before which helped in my chapter 2, literature

review. The articles from the Journal of Marketing were used to gather information that

was done by other researchers before regard was given to the model used. It was not easy

to find the literature review, as there were so many journals on the net and the libraries. It

was very time consuming to find the journals so, as I did not miss out any for the

research.

43

REFERENCES

Reference books are important as it talks of the different theories to apply in the research

problem. I used many different reference books so as to get the most suitable theories and

models to best describe and apply to the research problem Different authors have

different theories and each of them has there own uniqueness. Thus selecting the best and

the most suitable for the research problem so as to give a precise and clear idea to the

readers.

NEWS PAPERS

Newspapers are another source in obtaining information for my research, as there were

many articles on education in all daily newspapers in Malaysia such as The News Straits

Times, The Malay Mail, The Star and The Sun. These usually are specially focusing on

education in the Higher Educational Institutions in Malaysia, in these newspapers.

BROCHURES

Brochures were used as subsidiary information that tells about the universities

background, details information of the universities and so forth. Small amounts of

information were attained form the brochures and more detailed information were gained

when the interviews were carried out.

TARGET POPULATION AND SAMPLING METHODS

Sampling plan, a segmentation of the selected population for this survey and the result

will represent the population as a whole. Therefore, I draw up the conclusions of studying

220 sets of survey paper, which includes 55 sets of each of the following universities. The

Result will represent the students as a whole in Malaysia.

44

1. University of Malaya - 55 questionnaires

2. University Putra Malaysia - 55 questionnaires

3. University Tenaga Nasional - 55 questionnaires

4. University Tun Abdul Razak - 55 questionnaires

TOTAL - 220 questionnaires

The sampling procedures employed for the research was judgmental sampling .

Judgmental Sampling

Judgmental sampling is a non – probability sampling. It was emplied when I could not

obtain a list of students to represent the universities. Thus, judgmental sampling was

employed. When the questionnaires were distributed and completed by the students, I

selected the sample to be interviewed by using judgmental sampling.

DATA ANALYSIS

After collecting the data’s from the respondents, I used SPPS version 8.0 to enter all the

data and analyzed them. The method of analysis to be used analyze the data collected

from the survey include cross tabulation, bar charts, diagrams, frequencies and relative

frequencies. Cross-tabulation was used to measure there were two or more variables to

find the number of respondents and its’ corresponding percentage for each group. Such

finding are then displayed by the bar charts or pie charts.

LIMITATION OF THE RESEARCH Every research, however well – planned is undertaken certain limitations and constraints.

Hereby, I would like to list down the limitations and constraints that I faced while

completing this research of mine. The first and foremost, the finding are targeted on the

respondents in Klang Valley only so it may not be representative.

45

For this study, I used questionnaire method to collect primary data. As we all know it is

Very time consuming and not only that but also cost consuming. The costs were incurred

through printing of questionnaires and transportation. Meanwhile, time was the major

factor because it took sometime to get back the feedback and had to explain the

questions to a few respondents.

There were many other difficulties which I had to face in terms of obtaining data from the

Private Education Department (Ministry of Education). The officers were always not

available for interview purposes and so I was left with not other choice but to settle for

secondary data.

Another limitation was, the private universities, when approached for permission to

conduct such a research, were not keen in taking part. That is why had to manage with

only questionnaire and secondary and secondary data.

46

CHAPTER 4

PART A

ANALYSIS After screening the questionnaires, the answers were typed into the SPSS statistical

package. From there on, a battery of tests was conducted. Reliability and validity were

used to determine whether the question matches with the answers given by the

respondent. These include descriptive statistics to differentiate the various groups in the

survey such as percentage of respondent gender, age nationality and etc. With this mean

of each group was calculated and compared with each other.

SECTION A: BACKGROUND TABLE 10: GENDER

GENDER MALE FEMALE TOTAL

UNIVERSITY

NO % NO % NO %

UNIVERSITY 13 19.6 34 27.0 47 100

MALAYA (27.7) (72.3)

UNIVERSITY

PUTRA 11 16.7 39 31.0 50 100

MALAYSIA (22.0) (78.0)

UNIVERSITY TUN 25 37.9 19 15.1 44 100

ABDUL RAZAK (56.8) (43.2)

UNIVERSITY

TENAGA 17 25.8 34 26.9 51 100

NASIONAL (33.3) (66.7)

TOTAL 66 100 126 100.0 192 100

(Figures in brackets are column percentages)

47

GRAPH 1.0: GENDER

01020304050

UMUPM

UNITAR

UNITEN

MALE

FEMALE

Overall 65.6% of the respondents are female while the remaining 34.4% are male Among

the 192 respondents majority female are from University Putra Malaysia with the

percentage of 31.0% and male respondents are from University Tun Abdul Razak with

56.8%. There is more female respondent, probably because of their liking or preference to

business courses.

48

TABLE 1.1 AGE (Figure in brackets is column percentages)

UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

TOTAL

AGE MALAYA PUTRA

TUN

ABDUL TENAGA

MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL

NO % NO % NO % NO % NO %

18-20 3 6.1 8 16.3 12 24.5 26 53.1 49 100

(6.4) (16.0) (27.3) (51.0)

21-23 30 63.8 38 33.6 24 21.3 21 18.6 113 100

(63.8) (76.0) (54.5) (41.2)

24-26 8 40 3 15 7 35 2 10 20 100

(17.0) (6.0) (15.9) (3.9)

ABOVE 27 6 60 1 10 1 10 2 20 10 100

(12.8) (2.0) (2.3) (3.9)

TOTAL 47 100 50 100 44 100 51 100 192 100

0

10

20

30

40

UM UPM UNITAR UNITEN

18-2021-23

24-26ABOVE 27

From the 192 respondents, 58.9% are from the age 21-23, followed by 25.5% from the

age of 18-20, 10.4% from age of 24-26 while the balance are from the age group of

above27. In Malaysia majority of student enter universities at an average age of 19 to 20.

49

Also, the respondent are most likely second or third year students, hence the age group

majority of 21 to 23. It is also a known fact that people above the age of 27 are highly

unlikely to still be in universities.

TABLE 1.3 NATIONALITIES

UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

TOTAL

MALAYA PUTRA

TUN

ABDUL TENAGA

NASIONALITY MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL


MALAYSIAN 43 23.4 49 26.6 43 23.4 49 26.6 184 100

(91.5) (98.0) (97.7) (96)

INDONESIAN 3 100 3 100

(6.4)

MALDIVES

CHINESE 1 33.3 1 33.3 1 33.4 3 100

(2.1) (2.3) (2.0)

OTHERS 1 50 1 50 2 100

(2.0) (2.0)

TOTAL 47 100 50 100 44 100 51 100 192 100

50

GRAPH 1.3: NATIONALITY

0102030405060


MALAYSIAN

INDONESIAN

MALDIVES

CHINESE

OTHERS

Out of 192 respondents, 95.8% ARE Malaysian, followed by Indonesian and Chinese

(From China) with 1.57% and others with 1.06%. In the survey, there were no

respondents from Maldives. The finding in this table is extremely logical considering that

all the respondents are from Malaysian universities. To compound matters, local

universities do not accept foreign students for undergraduate programs.

51

SECTION B:EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND (CURRENTLY PURSUING)

TABLE 1.4 EDUCATION BACKGROUND

GOVERNMENT PRIVATE

UNIVERSITY


UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

TOTAL

EDUCATION MALAYA PUTRA

TUN

ABDUL TENAGA

BACKGROUND MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL


PRE 2 66.7 1 33.3 3 100

UNIVERSITY (4.3) (2.0)

DIPLOMA 2 18.6 1 9 8 72.5 11 100

(4.3) (2.0) (15.7)

BACHELORS/ 37 21.8 47 27.6 44 25.9 42 24.7 170 100

DEGREE (78.7) (94.0) (100) (82.4)

MASTERS/POST 6 75 2 25 8 100

GRADUATE (12.8) (4.0)

TOTAL 47 100 50 100 44 100 51 100 192 100

(Figure in brackets are column percentages)

GRAPH 1.4 EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

01020304050


PRE - UNI

DIPLOMA

DEGREE

POST - GRAD

52

88.5% of the respondents Bachelor’s Degree student followed by 5.75% in Diploma,

4.18% are from Post– Graduate level and the remaining of the respondents are currently

In Pre-University course. It is also interesting to note that 100% of the students are from

UNITAR Fall in the category of Bachelor Degree. The data above corresponds well with

the scope of study of this research, which is mainly looking into undergraduate program.

SECTION C: MAJOR AREA OF STUDY

TABLE 1.5 MAJOR AREA OF STUDY

GOVERNMENT PRIVATE

UNIVERSITY


UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

TOTAL

AREA OF MALAYA PUTRA

TUN

ABDUL TENAGA

STUDY MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL


ACCOUNTING 5 41.7 3 25 1 8.3 3 25 12 100

(10.6) (60.) (2.3) (5.9)

BUSINESS 32 28.3 30 26.5 39 34.5 12 10.7 113 100

(68.1) (60.0) (88.6) (23.5)

LAW

MARKETING 2 20 3 30 5 50 10 100

(4.0) (6.8) (9.8)

ECONOMICS 9 64.3 5 35.7 14 100

(19.1) (10.0)

OTHERS 1 2.3 10 23.3 1 2.3 31 72.1 43 100

(2.1) (20.0) (2.30 (60.8)

TOTAL 47 100 50 100 44 100 51 100 192 100

53

GRAPH 1.5 MAJOR AREA OF STUDY

01020304050

ACCOUNTING

BUSINESS

LAW

MARKETING

ECONOMICS

OTHERS

UM

UPM

UNITAR

UNITEN

Out of 192 respondents, 58.85 of them are from Business Studies, followed by 22.4% in

other areas as engineering, science and so on 7.30% of the respondents are Economics

students and the remaining of the respondents are from Accounting and Marketing.

UNITAR (Kelana Jaya campus) mainly offers business courses therefore majority of

UNITAR respondents are Business students.

TABLE 1.6 PERIOD OF STUDYING IN THE SAID UNIVERSITY

GOVERNMENT PRIVATE

UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY TOTAL

MALAYA PUTRA TUN ABDUL TENAGA

STUDY

TIME MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL


LESS THAN

1 4 15.4 7 26.9 4 15.4 11 42.3 26 100

YEAR (8.5) (14.0) (9.1) (21.5)

1-2 YEARS 21 23.3 26 28..9 29 32.2 14 15.6 90 100

(44.7) (52.0) (65.9) (27.5)

MORE THAN 22 28.9 17 22.4 11 14.5 26 34.2 76 100

2 YEARS (46.8) (34.0) (25.0) (51.0)

TOTAL 47 100 50 100 44 100 51 100 192 100

54

GRAPH 1.6 PERIOD OF STUDYING IN THE SAID UNIVERSITY

05

101520253035


< 1 year

1-2 year

> 2 year

46.88% of the respondents have been studying for about 1-2 years, whereas 39.58% for

above 2 years and 13.54% of the respondents are fresh students. This table relates very

well to table 1.2, where it shows that majority of the respondents is first or second year

students.

TABLE 1.7 DECISIONS MAKING IN CHOOSING UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY


UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

TOTAL

DECISION MALAYA PUTRA

TUN

ABDUL TENAGA

MAKING MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL


MYSELF 35 28 34 27.2 29 23.2 27 21.6 125 100

(74.5) (68.0) (65.9) (52.9)

FRIENDS 2 11.1 2 11.1 10 55.6 4 22.2 18 100

(4.3) (4.0) (22.7) (7.8)

FAMILY 9 20 14 31.1 5 11.1 17 37.8 45 100

MEMBERS (19.1) (28.0) (11.4) (33.3)

OTHERS 1 25 3 75 4 100

(2.1) (5.9)

TOTAL 47 100 50 100 44 100 51 100 192 100

55

GRAPH 1.7 DECISIONS MAKING IN CHOOSING UNIVERSITY

0

10

20

30

40


MYSELF

FRIENDS

FAMILY

OTHERS

65.10% of the respondents make their own decision in choosing a university while others

Are convinced by family members, friends and others. It shows that Malaysian in general

Is independent by nature. Although it is highly probable that parents sponsor most of

Them, it seems that the final decision still rests with the students.

56

TABEL 1.8: CRITERIA IN CHOOSING A UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY


UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY

MALAYA PUTRA

TUN

ABDUL TENAGA

CRITERIA MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL

FRIENDLY

SERVICE (3a) 5.23 5.76 5.23 5.73

PRICE OF

COURSE(3b) 5.51 5.2 5.64 5.27

COURSES

OFFERED (3c) 6.15 6.32 5.77 6.1

RECOGNITON BY 6.19 6.38 6.07 6.49

MINISTRY (3d)

EQUIPMENT & 5.68 5.9 5.55 6.35

TECHNOLOGY (3e)

ATMOSPHERE (3f) 5.34 5.88 5.11 6.22

LOCATION (3g) 5.36 5.34 5.05 5.49

SECURITY (3h) 5.89 6.22 5.61 6.04

CLEANLINESS (3i) 5.38 6.02 5.52 6.18

ENVIROMENT (3j) 5.51 6.08 5.3 6.37

OTHERS (3k) 6.13 3.5 7 6

TOTAL 5.67 5.69 5.62 6.02


57

GRAPH 1.8 CRITERIA IN CHOOSING A UNIVERSITY

0

2

4

6

8

3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 3j 3k

UMUPMUNITARUNITENTOTAL

From the table and bar chart shown above, recognition by the ministry with the mean of

6.28 are the most important criteria that are likely to influence the student’s decision in

choosing a university. Other important criteria are type of course offered (6.09), security

(5.94), equipment and technology choices (5.87), and environment (5.82) and cleanliness

(5.78). The remaining criteria such as atmosphere price of course, friendly service and

location are the least important for the students in choosing a university.

58

TABLE 1.9 SERVICES OFFERED

UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY

SERVICES MALAYA PUTRA TUN ABDUL TENAGA

OFFERED MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL

FRIENDLY 4.87 4.52 5.50 5.10

SERVICES

(4a)

POLITENESS

(4b) 4.85 4.18 5.45 5.04

PACE OF 4.43 3.76 5.34 4.71

SERVICE (4c)

PROVIDING 4.49 3.56 5.48 4.41

FEEDBACK

(4d)

QUALITY OF 5.23 4.80 5.73 5.76

COURSE

CONTENT

(4e)

TOTAL 4.77 4.16 5.5 5.00


GRAPH 1.9 SERVICES OFFERED

0

2

4

6

8

4a 4b 4c 4d 4e

UM

UPM

UNITAR

UNITEN

TOTAL

59

Majority of the respondents agrees that quality of course content or syllabus is very

important with the mean of 5.38. A friendly service is another criteria with the mean of

4.98 followed with politeness (4.88), pace of services (4.56) and pace of providing

feedback (4.49). UNITAR respondents rated services offered to them as good with the

highest mean of 5.5. Here the respondents in the private universities are more satisfied

with the service offered compared to government universities

TABLE 1.10 ADMINISTRATION



MEAN MALAYSIA RAZAK NASIONAL

PROMISES (5a) 4.26 3.46 5.46 4.57

PROBLEM SOLVING

(5b) 4.13 3.30 4.93 4.53

SERVICES (5c) 4.36 3.48 5.02 4.51

WILLINGNESS TO

HELP (5d) 4.43 3.32 5.00 4.53

TOTAL 4.30 3.39 5.03 4.54

GRAPH 1.10 ADMINISTRATION

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

5a 5b 5c 5d

UM

UPM

UNITAR

UNITEN

TOTAL

60

UNITAR respondents agrees that the administration of the university is good with the

mean of 5.08 whereas University Putra Malaysia respondents feel that their

administration should be improved and it has the lowest mean of 3.39. Overall, majority

of the respondents feels that administration should be improved in their respective

universities. It is unofficially known tat government run universities is usually slack in

their administration procedures.

TABLE 1.11 LECTURERS




PROMT SERVICE 4.89 4.74

5.39

5.33

(6a)

WILLING TO HELP 4.98 4.88 5.61 5.78

(6b)

KNOWLEDGE TO 5.57 5.0 5.36 5.82

ANSWER (6c)

AVAILIBILITY 4.64 4.16 5.34 4.98

(6d)

MARKS PROMPTLY 5.02 4.40 5.34 5.2

(6e)

ATTENDANCE (6f) 3.91 3.32 4.66 3.31

COURSE OUTLINE 4.55 4.68 5.23 5.53

(6g)

TEACHING AIDS 4.91 4.46 5.50 5.53

(6h)

TOTAL 4.81 4.46 5.30 5.19


61

GRAPH 1.11 LECTURERS

01234567

6a 6b 6c 6d 6e 6f 6g 6h

UM

UPM

UNITAR

UNITEN

TOTAL

Majority of the respondents agrees that their lecturers have the knowledge to answer

question with the highest mean of 5.44. Private universities have upper edge regarding

lecturers compared to government universities. This can be related to the ratio of lecturer

to students in which local universities has a very high ratio compared to private

Universities. Therefore private university teachings are more personalize base. Hence the

higher satisfaction from students.

TABLE 1.12: FACILITIES




EQUIPMENT 5.40 5.54 5.73 6.25

(7a)

PHYSICAL 5.38 4.44 5.25 5.80

CENTER (7b)

LOANS/SCHOOL 5.79 5.66 5.95 5.88

ARSHIPS(7c)

TEACHING 5.13 4.78 5.36 5.25

METHOD (7d)

BOOKS 4.49 4.20 5.36 5.39

AVAILABILITY (7e)

TOTAL 5.24 4.92 5.53 5.71

(Figures n brackets are column percentages)

62

GRAPH 1.12: FACILITIES

0

2

4

6

8

7a 7b 7c 7d 7e

UM

UPM

UNITAR

UNITEN

TOTAL

In terms of facilities provided, the respondents with the mean of 5.82, rate their

universities provide loans, scholarships as the highest score, whereas availability of book

in the library as the lowest score, 4.86. Generally all the respondents rated above average

regarding facilities provided by their universities. But University Putra Malaysia students

are slightly dissatisfied compared to the others. Here, the highly populated nature of local

universities, which have small of students per facility. But surprisingly private

universities, which have small number of students also, seem to have a problem with

facilities.

63

TABLE 1.13: SUPPORT FACILITIES




LIBRARY (8a) 5.26 5.04 4.57 5.96

COMPUTER LAB (8b) 4.70 5.04 5.80 5.41

CANTEEN (8c) 4.19 3.40 1.64 5.35

HOSTELS (8d) 4.34 4.06 1.77 5.63

SPORT ACTIVITIES

(8e) 5.11 4.34 3.75 5.22

TOILETS (8f) 4.06 3.20 4.73 5.43

FOOD (8g) 3.87 3.30 2.16 4.82

STAFF(8h) 4.11 3.14 5.05 4.94

TOTAL 4.46 3.94 3.68 5.35


GRAPH 1.13 SUPPORT FACILITIES

01234567

8a 8b 8c 8d 8e 8f 8g 8h

UMUPMUNITARUNITENTOTAL

Based on the respondents, UNITEN scored the highest mean with 5.35 for the support

facilities provided by their university. Where UNITAR recorder the lowest mean of 3.68.

64

Generally all the respondents noted food quality very bad in all the universities.

Respondents rated computer lab as highest mean of 5.24 followed by library (5.21), sport

activities (4.62), and toilet (4.36), and staff (4.32). The remaining support facilities such

as hostels, canteen and quality of food are below average. All the universities should

improve on the aspect above so that the students’ will be more satisfied

PART B

INFERENTIAL ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS The chi-square statistic (x2) is used to test the statistical significance of the observed

association in a cross tabulation. Here the test is conducted based on <4 (dissatisfied) and

> 4 (satisfied). Meanwhile 4 are not tested because respondents are not sure with their

Answers. Before proceeding into x2 test reliability and validity analysis is made and

analysis resulted are put at the end in Appendix 111.

SERVICE PRODUCT H : There is no difference in the opinion of the students with respect to

Service products of private and government universities.

H : There is difference in the opinion of the students with suspect to service

Product of private and government universities.

UNIVERSITY GOVERNMENT PRIVATE TOTAL

HYPOTHESIS

<4 29 8 37

>4 64 86 150

TOTAL 93 94 187

65

Inference: Calculated value is 15.05 which is greater than table value of 3.84 at 1

degree of freedom and 5 significance level. Hence H is rejected. And

alternative hypothesis is accepted. It can be inferred that there is difference

in opinion of the students with respect to services product of private and

government universities.

Private universities have meant of 2.25 compared to 4.47 by the

government and universities. These support the chi-square tests where is

difference in the opinion of the students with respect to service product.

Private university students are more satisfied compared to government

universities.

ADMINISTRATION H: There is no different in the opinion of the students with respect to

administration of private and government universities.

H: There is difference in the opinion of the students with respect to

administration of private and government universities


HYPOTHESIS

<4 41 17 58

>4 49 72 121

TOTAL 90 89 179

66

Inference: Calculated value is 14.25 which is greater than table value of 3.841 at 1

degree of freedom and 5% significant level. Hence H is rejected and

alternative hypothesis is accepted. It can be inferred that there is difference

in the opinion of the student with respect to administration. We could also

summarize that private university students are more satisfied compared to

the government.

From the table 1.10, private universities have the mean of 4.79 compared to 3.85 by the

government universities. This result supports the chi-square test where there s difference

in the opinion of the students with respect to administration. We could also summarize

that private university students are mire satisfied compared to the government

counterpart.

LECTURERS

H: There is no difference in the opinion of the students with respect to

lecturers of private and government universities.

H: There is difference in the opinion of the student with respect to lecturers of

private and government universities.


HYPOTHESIS

<4 17 8 25

>4 78 85 163

TOTAL 95 93 188

67

Inference: Calculated value is 3.515 which is lesser than table value of 3.841

at degree of reedom and 5% significant level. Hence H is accepted

and alternative hypothesis is rejected. And it can be inferred that

there is no difference in the opinion of the students with respect to

lecturers of private and government universities.

From table 1.11, private universities have the mean of 5.25 compared to 4.64 by the

counterpart. These result because according to the chi- square test, there is no difference

in the students with respect to lecturers of private and government universities. The

difference of the mean is gathered from the cross tabulation.

FACILITIES

H: There is no difference in the opinion of the students with respect to

facilities of private and government universities.

H: There is difference in the opinion of the students with respect to facilities

of private and government universities.


HYPOTHESIS

<4 9 6 15

>4 81 89 170

TOTAL 90 95 185

Inference: Calculated value 0.843 which is lesser than table value of 3.841 at 1

degree of freedom and 5% significant level. Hence H is accepted and

alternative hypothesis rejected. And it can be inferred that there is no

68

difference in the students with respect to facilities of private and

government universities.

From table 1.12, private universities have the mean of 5.62 compared to 5.08 by the

government universities. This result does not support the chi-square test because

according to the test, there is no difference in the opinion of the students with respect to

facilities of private and government universities. These differences are obtained from

cross tabulation and we could say that private university students are slightly more

satisfied compared to the government students.

69

CHAPTER 5

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

RECOMMENDATIONS

After having conducted the investigation , analyzing the finding and formulating the

conclusion, a few recommendations may to be made for the improvement of the higher

education institutions in terms of service products, administration, lecturers and facilities.

SERVICE PRODUCTS Based on the chart 1.9, private students are more satisfied overall so government

universities should improve mainly in the aspect of providing feed back or taking

necessary action as soon as possible. According to the finding, government universities

staff should be more professional in handling students welfare because the staff in the

government universities takes things for granted that the students in the government

universities may be so much lower than the private universities. So the students got no

choice but to put up with this and not leave the universities and sign up in the private

university where the fees is double what the pay in the government universities. Changing

the public relation skills will improve their mindset and be more professional in handling

the students.

ADMINISTRATION Administration is another important aspect where it will determine effectiveness of a

university. According to the chart 1.10 students from University Putra Malaysia are very

dissatisfied with the administration. UNITAR has the least administration problems

because most of their registration is down by online so there is no contact with the staff.

Furthermore, based on my survey, most of the student prefers less contact with the

administrative staff, so my recommendation is to implement online service so that the

70

student need not queue up as early as 4 am before the registration booth opens at 9.00

am.Online registration is the best solution because generally most of the students

nowadays have their own computers and this method is hassle free.

LECTURERS Government universities have the best lectures but it does not justify the research done

because most of the government university student does no agree that they have the best

lecturer. My opinion is that having the best Lecturer. My opinion is that having the best

lecturer is not good enough because their public relation with the students are very

important.If we take private universities, lecturers are always available to the students so

it is plus point there.I would recommend that generally all the lecturers should have

visiting time where their students can consult them and not only that but start

corresponding with the students via e- mail. That is the last method I would recommend

because lecturers can solve the students problems from home or anytime from anywhere.

FACILITIES

Facilities are what the students nowadays stress on before signing up a program.

Generally private universities have better facilities due to the financial background. This

is all because the government funds government universities and the fees paid by the

students are just nice to pay for the operation cost. So to solve problem, government

should have bigger allocation for education and upgrade the facilities to provide the best

for the students.

SUMMARY To summarize the whole chapter, government universities should be more competitive

and should erase their mindset thinking that they are best. If they do not consider this,

one-day they might lose out to private universities because student’s satisfaction is very

important aspect. Satisfaction will lead them to strive harder in education.

71

In my research, I have collected data through questionnaire that distributed to about 220

students from 4 universities. I used data tabulation to summarize the 192 questionnaire

than I managed to collect back from the respondents. All the questionnaire was tabulated

one by one in order to get mean and percentage.

If we compare gender of the 192 respondents, the percentage of female respondent is

more than male. When it comes to age, majority of the respondent’s falls into the age

category of 21 to 23 and 96% from the 192 respondents is locals or Malaysian. Most of

the respondents are Bachelor Degree students from the school of business because that

was objective of the research or another word the scope of the research.

If we rate the importance of the criteria that is likely to influence students in choosing a

university, recognition by the Ministry is the main factor that all the respondents want

from the university that they choose. Recognition is so important that without recognition

from the ministry, a student will find difficulties in getting a job in the government sector

and not only that but the degree will be not recognize in the country’s job

market.Whereas services offered is among the main criteria that I had choose to do my

research on. Generally all the respondents are quite happy with the services offered

because they rated it just above average but there is still room to improve because

students satisfaction is very important in the education industry. From this research I

would say that students from the private universities are more satisfied compared to the

government universities. Ministry should note this point to close the gap between private

and government universities.

According to the respondents, administration of the universities is average. Students from

University Putra Malaysia are dissatisfied with the administration and generally most of

their students rated the administration below average compared to the rest.From the

survey, lecturers from the Private universities satisfy their students and always there for

the students to government universities. A lecturer is the core of the education industry

because they are the moderators between the university and students. As we all know that

72

most of the government universities have the best lecturers in town but from this research

the students in the government universities are not satisfied with them.When it comes to

facilities, it again private universities have the upper hand over government universities

because the private sector have the fund to invest and mainly their funds are contributed

by the students through the higher school fees compared to the government universities.

The University Tenaga Nasional has the best facilities offered to their students compared

to the rest. Here we could conclude that Tenage Nasional Berhad the owner of the

university are a corporate body and a listed company so funding a project is not a

problem.

Support facilities like canteen (atmosphere), food (quality) and hostels are the main

problems faced by the students. Universities should bare in mind that the above support

facilities are basic need for a student. As what we know normally parents will check on

the above basic need before make a decision on which university to choose (normally for

private universities)Based on the research, students from the private universities are more

satisfied compared to the government universities. Mainly the four-factor service offered,

administration, lecturers and a facility are the core of this study and summary is based

unit. Basically all the universities have room for improvement because students wants and

needs always changes. In this industry, students are the ‘King’ so it is the university

responsibility to satisfy them.

As stated earlier, the aim of this study was to analyze student’s satisfaction between

private universities and local universities using service quality theory. From the analysis,

it shows that private universities students are more satisfy compared to Government

University in the main factor of study such as service offered administration, lecturers and

facilities.

From the research finding and analysis, it can now be concluded that, higher educational

institutions in Malaysia need to establish system to monitor and control the quality of

education that they are providing to the students.The ministry of Education is fully aware

of the need to do so and it has taken certain measure towards that director: i.e. to create

and maintain a quality education system in Malaysia. In its’ step, it has created a Private

73

Education Department under its’ ministry and at the same time initiated the Nasional

Accreditation Board which is in charge of monitoring the Private Higher Institution in

Malaysia.

74

REFERENCE:

1. Ball, Sir Christopher, Eggins, Heather, (1989). Higher education into the 1990’s

New Dimensions. The Society for Research into Higher Education (1st

ed.).Buckingham: Open University Press.

2. Becher, Tony, Kogan, Muarice, (1992), Process and Structure in Higher

Education (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

3. Murdick R.G., Render B., Russell R.S, (1990), Service Operation Management.

London: Allyn and Bacon.

4. Zaithaml V.A., Parasuraman A., & Berry L.L. (1990), Delivering Quality Service.

New York: The Free Press.

5. Light L. (1996), Up Front. Business Week, 12 August.

6. Rust R.T., Zaharik A.J., & Keiningam T.L. (1994), Return on Quality Measuring

the Financial Impact of your company quest for quality. Cambridge, England:

Probus Publishing Company.

7. Holbrook M.B., Corfman K.P. (1985), Quality and Value in the Comsumption

Experience, Perceived Quality (pp.31-57). Lexington: Lexington MA.

8. Oliver R.L. (1993), A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Service

Satisfaction: Competitive Goals, Different Concepts. C.T. Jai: Greenwich. In T.A

Swart, D.C. Bowen & S.W Brown (Eds.) Advances in Service Marketing and

Management. Research and Practise. C.T.Jai: Greenwich.

75

9. Kathler P. & Armstrong G. (1996). Principles of Marketing. Prentice Hall

International.

10. Frank Bradley. (1995). International Marketing Strategy. Prentice Hall.

11. Anuar Ali. Director of Higher Education. Ministry of Education.

12. Fair-weather, Jones S. (1989). Academic Research and Instruction. The Industrial

Connection. Higher Education.

13. Ellis, Roger. (1993). Quality Assurance for University Teaching (1st ed.)

Unpublished material.

14. Berry L.L., Conant, J.S.& Parasuraman A. (1991). A Framework for Conducting a

Service Marketing Audit. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

15. Donald T. Warwick & Charles A Liniger, (1975). The Sample Surveys Theory and

Practice. New York: McGraw Hill.

16. Berry L.L., Zeithaml V.A & Parasuraman A, (1990). Managing Services: 5

Imperatives for Implementing Service Quality. New Jersery: Prentice Hall

Incorporation.

17. William G. Zikmund. (1997). Exploring Marketing Research (6th ed.). The

Dryden Press.

18. Leonard L.Berry. (1995). On Great Services: A Framework For Action. The

Dryden Press.

76

19. David J.Luck & Ronald S. Rubin. (1989). Marketing Research (7th ed.).

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall Incorporation.

20. Bednall S., Kanuk W. (1997). Consumer Behaviour. Australis Pty. Ltd, Australia:

Prentice Hall Incorporation.

21. Boulding W., Kalra a., Staelin R., Zithaml V.A. (1993). A Dynamic Process

Model of Services Quality. Journal of Marketing Research, 30. February.

22. Deming W.E. (1988). Competitive Advantage. New York: The Free Press.

ACTS

1. Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 555. International Law Book Services.

2. Lembaga Akredittasi Negara (Act 556). Nasional Accrediation Act. International

Law Book Services.

77

APPENDIX 1

Questionnaire

This survey is intended to study about student’s satisfaction between Private Universities

and Government Funded Universities in the Klang Valley.All information provided by

the respondent will be treated as private and confidential. The information in only for

academic purposes. I would appreciate 10 minutes of your time to answer the following

questions.

Thank You.

Section A Your Background

GENDER : Male Female

AGE : 18 – 20 21 – 23

24 – 26 Above 27

NATIONALITY : Malaysian Indonesian

Maldives Chinese

Others (please specify):_____________________

Section B Educational Background (Currently pursuing)

Pre-University Diploma

78

Bachelor’s Degree Masters / Post-Graduate

Name of University: ____________________________________________

Section C Major Area of Study

Accounting Business

Law Marketing

Economic Others ________________________

Please specify the title of your course currently being pursued______________________

1) How long have you been studying in the said university?

Less than 1 year

1 – 2 years

More than 2 years

2) Who normally is your decision maker in choosing the university you study in?

My self Friends

Family Members Others _______________

3) Please rate the importance of the criteria that is likely to influence your decision

In choosing a university (1 = not important and 7 = very important).

a) Friendly service 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

b) Price of course 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

c) Types of course offered 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

d) Recognition by the Ministry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

79

e) Equipment & Technologies choices 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

f) Atmosphere (Comfort) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

g) Location 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

h) Security 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

i) Cleanliness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

j) Environment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

k) Others 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4) Please rate the services offered in your higher institution.

a) Friendly services

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very dissatisfied Very Satisfied

b) Politeness

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very impolite Very Polite

80

c) Pace of service

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very Slow Very Fast

d) Pace of providing feedback / action taken

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very Slow Very Fast

e) Quality of course content / syllabus

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very inadequate Very Adequate

5) Administration

a) When the universities promises to do something by a certain time, it does

so

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree

b) When you have a problem the university shows a sincere interest in

sloving it

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Strongly Disagree Strong Agree

81

c) University performs the right the first time

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


d) Staff at the universities always willing to help you

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


6) Letterers

a) Lecturers of the university give you prompt service

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


b) Lecturers of the university are always willing to help you

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


c) Lecturers of the university have knowledge to answer your question

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


82

d) Lecturers always available for you to meet them

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


e) Lecturers give you your assignment marks promptly

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


f) Lecturers come for lectures later or end the lectures early

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


g) Lecturers teach all that is in the course outline

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


h) Lecturers use teaching aids

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


7) Facilities

a) Your university modern equipments / teaching aids (i.e. power point,

transparencies etc.)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


83

b) Your university’s physical centre is well equipment

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


c) Your university provides loans / scholarships

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


d) To what extent are you satisfied with the teaching methods used by the

lecturers in your programme?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very dissatisfied Very satisfied

e) With regards to the books used in your course, are the books available in

the library?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very insufficient Very sufficient

84

8) How do you find the following support facilities provided by the university?

Poor Good

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Library

Computer Lab

Canteen (Atmosphere)

Hostels

Sports Activities

Toilets (Cleanliness)

Food (Quality)

Staff (Overall)

9) Which aspect do you think your institution should improve on?

__________________________________________________________________

THANK YOU.

85

APPENDIX 11

RELIABILITY ANALYSIS

UNIVERSITY 1

QUESTION ALPHA VALUE

4 0.6

5 0.7

6 0.6

7 0.9

UNIVERSITY 2


4 0.8

5 0.9

6 0.6

7 0.7

86

UNIVERSITY 3


4 0.6

5 0.9

6 0.7

7 0.7

UNIVERSITY 4


4 0.8

5 0.7

6 0.6

7 0.9

87

APPENDIX 111

FACTOR ANALYSIS RESULTS

UNIVERSITY 1

QUESTION 4 QUESTION 5 QUESTION 6 QUESTION 7

FACTOR FACTOR FACTOR FACTOR

4a 0.883 5a 0.900 6a 0.313 7a 0.742

5b 0.880 5b 0.911 6b 0.268 7b 0.878

4c 0.864 5c 0.918 6c 0.179 7c 0.401

4d 0.768 5d 0.806 6d 0.223 7d 0.878

4e 0.382 6e 0.229 7e 0.406

6f 0.299

6g 0.302

6h 0.270

88

UNIVERSITY 2



4a 0.93 5a 0.771 6a 0.530 7a 0.669

5b 0.911 5b 0.800 6b 0.393 7b 0.444

4c 0.734 5c 0.897 6c 0.492 7c 0.523

4d 0.622 5d 0.857 6d 0.422 7d 0.631

4e 0.511 6e 0.370 7e

6f 0.341

6g 0.405

6h 0.499

UNIVERSITY 3



4a 0.728 5a 0.826 6a 0.257 7a 0.765

5b 0.805 5b 0.820 6b 0.374 7b 0.820

4c 0.775 5c 0.780 6c 0.260 7c 0.692

4d 0.821 5d 0.782 6d 0.261 7d 0.742

4e 0.563 6e 0.372 7e 0.693

6f 0.333

6g 0.359

6h 0.340

89

UNIVERSITY 4



4a 0.786 5a 0.626 6a 0.637 7a 0.55

5b 0.836 5b 0.856 6b 0.876 7b 0.574

4c 0.932 5c 0.912 6c 0.930 7c 0.999

4d 0.905 5d 0.869 6d 0.580 7d 0.564

4e 0.504 6e 0.705 7e 0.430

6f 0.624

6g 0.653

6h 0.616

Date post:	14-Dec-2015
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