Question:
Background
The authors seek to conduct marketing research to identify the satisfaction levels of Kent Institute Australia’s (Kent) students on its infrastructure, facilities and resources that are made available to them.
Since the author’s last proposal, new information has come to light regarding Kent’s internet and devices capabilities. It has been confirmed by Kent’s IT Support Technician that the college’s current internet provider is TPG and runs on 400Mb/s upload and download speeds. Further, there are 123 student PCs in total which comprise of 37 general use PCs and 86 PCs in teaching labs. Through observation, the authors have identified that there are currently four shelves containing prescribed textbooks and relevant reading materials, and a desk assigned to classic and newly-released fiction and non-fiction books. Also through observation, the authors have cited one break area for students on level 5 and a small, kitchen-only area on mezzanine for library-goers. There is one power point each room with some allocated an additional power point outside of the room. Moreover, there are a minimum of 30 desks/chairs in each room.
Information on Kent’s infrastructure, facilities and resources, like the above, is important to establish the problem definition, which is to identify the satisfaction levels of students, and to support the authors’ key findings in the final report.
Research methodology
?Research methodology is comprised of three aspects - research philosophy, research approach and research design. Research philosophies are for three types- positivism, interpretivism and pragmatism (Goldkuhl 2012). This research study will follow pragmatism philosophy that refers that both quantitative and qualitative research methods will be used in the research that is the process of considering large sample size through survey and small sample size for interview process is focused.
Research approach is of two types - inductive and deductive (Creswell & Creswell 2017). This research focuses on the deductive approach as this research does not aims for developing new theories and the level of student’s satisfaction regarding university’s infrastructure, resources and facilities will be observed based on the response given by them on the survey questions. Moreover, Creswell and Creswell (2017) stated that there are three categories of research design - descriptive, exploratory and explanatory. This research will focus on sequential explanatory research design as collection and research result of quantitative data is followed by the qualitative data of the collection and analysis. The qualitative research obtained thus utilized for explaining the significance of the findings of the quantitative research result.
?Data collection process in the research methodology includes two processes - primary and secondary data collection process (Goldkuhl 2012). In primary data collection process, the response is taken directly from the respondents and can be collected through survey, interviews and telephonic conversation. On the other hand, data collected from sources like newspaper articles, magazines and research papers is known as secondary data collection. This research will focus on the primary data collection process through online survey from the students of the considered academic institutions.
Sampling framework
Ritchie et al. (2013) stated that sampling framework methodology represents the source material through which a sample is drawn. The source can be people, organisations, or existing documents based on the type of the data collection selected for the research study (Uprichard 2013). Probability and non-probability sampling methods are the two different categories for selecting the sample size for primary data collection (Acharya et al. 2013).?
This research emphasised on both the probability and non-probability sampling methods. The sample size of the students of the university will be selected based on probability sampling methods- simple random sampling; while the selection of the respondents for the qualitative research will be based on non-probability sampling methods. The simple random sampling method is applied to only two sections of the higher education classes and the sampling framework also considers these students as the research respondents.
Sample size
?The total sample size for this research study will be a minimum of 60 Higher Education students from two separate classes. Students will give response to the questions based on the required facility of the Kent Institute Australia. The authors acknowledge that this sample size is less than 100 which is required to conduct academic research. However, due to the limited population size and the relatively small-scale nature of the research, a minimum of 60 in sample size is sufficient for the purposes of this research.
Questionnaire
Q1. What courses are you enrolled at Kent Institute Australia?
Q2: How satisfied are you with the number of power points in your classroom?
Q3. How satisfied are you with the internet throughout the campus offered by Kent Institute Australia?
Q4. What is your favourite thing about the Library?
Q5. What is your least favourite thing about the library?
Q6. How satisfied are you with the student kitchen area of your institution?
Q7: How satisfied are you with the desks available in your classrooms?
Q8: How satisfied are you with the quality of student computers?
Q9: In a few sentences, provide compliments and/or complaints you may have about the Sydney campus?
Q10. Select what is most important to you as a student of Kent Institute at the Sydney campus?
Proposed analytical techniques
It was suggested in the previous research proposal that the questionnaire participants’ responses will be transferred onto a spreadsheet which would require manual input by the authors. As it is both time consuming and leaves room for errors, the authors now propose utilising the online survey development platform, Survey Monkey, to analyse questionnaire results. The two analytical tools that are available at no cost and are relevant to the objectives of the research are question summaries and individual responses. First, the question summaries tool will be primarily used to gain quick insight into the overall results of the questionnaire, and in particular, responses to close-ended questions will be automatically presented in the form of dynamic charts for visual analysis of the results. Second, the individual responses tool allows for authors to analyse the response completeness of each questionnaire, indicating its status as complete, partial, disqualified or over quota. This tool will be useful for the authors to distinguish qualified and unqualified data which will increase the overall accuracy and relevance of the research outcomes. In addition, the authors propose conducting a text analysis of responses to open-ended questions where respondents’ important words and/or phrases will be identified. Although not a free feature offered by Survey Monkey, the authors see that this type of analysis is important, especially in the formation of key findings which will be presented in the final report.
Answer:
Background of the Research and Organisation:
Student satisfaction is one of the most important parts of an institution to get the reputation as well as maintain student retention (Dow, 2017). As opined by Armstrong et al (2015), to acquire students’ satisfaction, management of every institution always think about the student welfare and try to provide best quality service to them. Kent institution was set up in Australia, in 1989 at Sydney, Burwood and at that time the only course offered by the institution was Information Technology.
In the present scenario, The Institution offers higher education course which includes courses like bachelor of business, accountancy and information technology and other one vocational course which consist business and technology-oriented training schedule.
The aim of the Research:
The main aim of this research is to find out the main issues by which Kent Institution, Australia is mainly facing regarding student satisfaction and try to suggest the better way to resolve those loophole.
Research objectives:
- Upbringing the best educational course and practice for both Australia and globe
- To analyse the satisfaction of Students of Kent Institution, Australia
- To suggest a better way, by which student can get satisfaction regarding the service provided by Kent Institution, Australia
The rationale of the study:
KENT institute of Australia is a government-affiliated and registered as a private college which offers the bachelor degree in business, accounting, and information technology. The institution believes that all students coming from different cultures have given same education and also it has a special system to educate financially poor students. Industrial exposure, modern art facilities of study, modern facilities make this institution unusual and this was the reason behind select this institution for further investigation (Shah & Richardson, 2016).
Research methodology:
Research Philosophy: pragmatism philosophy is selected which refers both quantitative and qualitative research method. This method can use large sample size process for survey and small sample for the interview process.
Research Approach: As the research does not target for building new theories and the level of the student’s satisfaction regarding the institution structure, thus this research mainly concentrate on the deductive research approach (Creswell, 2017).
Research Design: This research mainly based on the sequential explanatory research design as the qualitative data of the collection follows the collection and research result of quantitative data (Brace, 2018).
Data Collection Methods: Data collection has been conducted by using primary and secondary data collection method. In primary data collection method, the information is directly taken from the students via interview, survey. Apart from that, the secondary data collection includes more prominent way which is accumulated from online sources like websites, journals and books (Sadler, 2014).
Population and Sampling: To conduct academic research, simple random sampling is used to select 60 respondents for the survey process.
Data Analysis: The collected data is presented in tabular format and graphical format. After that, the data is analyzed with the help of percentile method and descriptive analysis of the data. Research Ethics: For conducting any research which includes human participants, following the research ethics is an important factor. In a primary research, the personal information of the participants needs to be kept in supreme secrecy.
Findings and analysis:
1.
![]()
Figure: Student enrollment in Kent Australia
Table: Student enrollment in Kent Australia
Findings and Analysis:
There are 58% candidates found, who mainly deals with Bachelor of Business. Apart from that, 38% candidates are related to Bachelor of Accounting.
2.
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Figure: Student satisfaction level regarding PowerPoint presentation of Kent Australia
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Table: Student satisfaction level regarding PowerPoint presentation of Kent Australia
Findings and Analysis:
Regarding the question, 20% candidates are fully satisfied and 23% are satisfied. Instead of it, 21% and 16% candidates are dissatisfied and fully dissatisfied respectively.
3
![]()
Figure: Student satisfaction level regarding internet speed of Kent Australia
Table: Student satisfaction level regarding internet speed of Kent Australia
Findings and Analysis:
Regarding this question, when asked the candidate regarding their satisfaction level of internet speed, 38% students of Kent Institution are fully satisfied and 43% students are satisfied with that aspect.
4
Figure: Candidates’ favourite things about Library
Findings and Analysis:
The respondent is asked about the favourite thing of the Library of Kent Institution in this question. Several types of responses found from the respondents as there were no specific options provided to them.
5
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Figure: Candidates’ least favourite things about Library
Findings and Analysis:
The management of the institution always should give importance to the feedback from service users. With resolving those issues, the reputation of the organisation can maintain properly.
6.
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Figure: Student satisfaction level regarding the Kitchen area of Kent Australia
Table: Student satisfaction level regarding the Kitchen area of Kent Australia
Findings and Analysis:
To respond the question regarding the satisfaction level of Kitchen area, 18% students are fully satisfied and 35% are satisfied. On the other hand, 25% and 16% students are not satisfied with the present kitchen area.
7.
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Figure: Student satisfaction level regarding the Desk available in the classroom of Kent Australia
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Table: Student satisfaction level regarding the Desk available in the classroom of Kent Australia
Findings and analysis:
When asked the students about the condition of Desk in a classroom, only 20% students are fully satisfied and 32% are satisfied. Apart that, 15% and 10% students are not satisfied with this aspect.
8
![]()
Figure: Student satisfaction level regarding the quality of the computer of Kent Australia
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Table: Student satisfaction level regarding the quality of the computer of Kent Australia
Findings and analysis:
In the light of the quality of computers which is mainly provided to the students for their use in the classroom, 43% students are fully satisfied and 35% are satisfied.
9.
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Figure: Student recommendation about the Kent Institution
Findings and analysis:
When I have asked the students about their suggestion by which they can get better quality service from Kent Institution, Australia, there were 58 different types of responses found from the candidates. Two of them did not respond this question.
10.
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Figure: Students’ necessity regarding Kent Institution
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Table: Students’ necessity regarding Kent Institution
Findings and analysis:
Regarding the question asked, 39% candidates think that some power sockets are very essential into the classroom. 11% students want more internet speed to do any work fast. 20% students want more availability of Books into the library and 25% thinks about to open a new library and 15% candidates want some academic support into the library whereas Kitchen cleanliness is also one of the most important criteria for 27% students. 35% candidates require quality of desk into the classroom. Quality of computer and availability of the computers is also an issue by which 6% and 10% candidates are facing daily.
References:
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.
Brace, I. (2018). Questionnaire design: How to plan, structure and write survey material for effective market research. Kogan Page Publishers.
Creswell, J. W., & Clark, V. L. P. (2017). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Sage publications.
Dow, K.L., 2017. Strengthening quality assurance in Australian higher education. In Global perspectives on quality in higher education (pp. 135-154). Routledge.
Kent Institute Australia. (2018). Home. Retrieved 5th June from: https://kent.edu.au/kent3/our-vision/
Sadler, G. R., Lee, H. C., Lim, R. S. H., & Fullerton, J. (2014). Recruitment of hard?to?reach population subgroups via adaptations of the snowball sampling strategy. Nursing & health sciences, 12(3), 369-374.
Shah, M., & Richardson, J. T. (2016). Is the enhancement of student experience a strategic priority in Australian universities?. Higher Education Research & Development, 35(2), 352-364.
