Distant Students’ Satisfaction as an Indicator of Institutional Success in Higher Education
Abstract
In higher education in Hungary, correspondence courses play an important role alongside the state funded (full-time) courses. Students enrolled in these courses usually learn while working and these studies complement or supplement the students' earlier educational path. Higher education institutions are competing for correspondence students and therefore the satisfaction of these students acquires a special significance. However, researchers have pointed out that their satisfaction depends not only on the quality of services but also on the commitment of the students. Satisfaction depends on several factors (e.g. on expectations, on preliminary considerations), according to Bean and Bradley this means an emotional stance in fact, which is associated with isolation and dissatisfaction in the case of fulltime students. Several international and also some Hungarian studies confirmed the connection between the dissatisfaction and non-embeddedness of students. In the research project Learning Regions in Hungary: From Theories to Realities we questioned part-time students from three dominant higher education institutions (N=1092). In our research we examined the following questions in the case of part-time students: what is the connection between motivation or commitment and achievement? And what kind of demands and requests turn the correspondence students into actors of Higher Education?
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