A student satisfaction model for Austrian higher education providers considering aspects of marketing communications

The literature reveals that universities are becoming more aware of the importance of student satisfaction. In addition, various studies have shown that student satisfaction has a positive impact on student motivation, student retention, recruiting efforts and fundraising. This article examines how overall student satisfaction in Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences can be broken down into dimensions of the student’s learning experience. In this context, student satisfaction is an individual overall subjective evaluation and experience of a product/service feature, the product/service itself and between what was received and as well as the perception of a gap between the received and the expected specific product/service to date (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Anderson, Fornell and Rust, 1997; Oliver, 1999). The article proposes a student satisfaction model for actual students in Austria taking an economic diploma course. The article also demonstrates that in addition to the academic and pedagogic quality of the teaching culture, infrastructure and quality of services from the administration personnel relationships should not be underestimated when trying to improve student satisfaction. Furthermore, the model specific differences between the two types of universities in Austria are considered. This article used both primary and secondary data. The primary data involved both, qualitative and quantitative research. The research was divided in three stages. The first stage, the analysis of the actual marketing models for services especially Higher Education providers, used secondary data as a principal method of research. The second stage contained the testing and validating of the pre-conceptualised model with actual students via the survey method. In the third stage, Higher Education experts in Austria were at the core of the research to further validate and adapt the model. The research was conducted applying the case study method.