EVALUATION OF STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION WITH A UNIVERSITY’S EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT TO ENHANCE ITS ATTRACTIVENESS FOR APPLICANTS

The relevance of the study is determined by the necessity of enhancing competitiveness of regional universities in terms of new trends in educational environment development, governmental and societal demands. The study primarily aims to evaluate the students’ satisfaction with educational services. The study is to detect preferences of students, who study at one of the regional universities, in educational process and educational environment, as well as applicants’ reasons for selecting a university. A multi-attributive model of service is proposed similarly to the Jean-Jacques Lambin’s multi-attributive model of product, which considers a product as a group of attributes (fundamental and supple-mentary functions, qualities, characteristics). The assessment of the quality of a service provided was determined using a survey of students, in which a service was evaluated using a set of attributes proposed by the focus group. The average score for each attribute and standard deviation of average scores were calculated according to Lambin’s method. The average score characterizes the level of respondents’ satisfaction with a certain attribute. The standard deviation characterizes the amount of dispersion of the respondents’ opinions. The results of the survey of 76 students of different educational programs and years of study of Pskov State University were used as a basis for consumers’ evaluation of quality of services. In the course of the study, factors with negative impact on the attractiveness of a university were revealed, which is of interest for further research. The study proposes recommendations for further monitoring of consumers’ opinions and for research on developing strategies of a university’s admission office.

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