Effect of University Administrative and Academic Processes on Student Engagement: An Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Student engagement is among the emerging discourses in education research. It is a significant factor in students' academic success and involves the student and the university's contributions. The literature extensively reports the studies that establish and explore the relationship between academic processes and student engagement; however, administrative processes are less focused. This study empirically tested the effect of administrative processes (admission, facilities management, counseling, and governance) and academic processes (teaching, learning, assessment & feedback, research & development) on student engagement. A survey instrument comprising 73 items was used to collect the data from 368 students of two private universities in Lahore, Pakistan. Except for the demographic fields, all items were gauged over a 7-point Likert scale with 1-7 (strong disagreement to the strong agreement). The reliability score of the pilot was 0.96, and of the final data, 0.92. Descriptive statistics were applied to explain the demographic characteristics of the sample. Smart PLS was used to draw structure equation models (SEM) by computing Partial Least Square (PLS) regression scores. Results have predicted strong and positive relationships between administrative processes, academic processes, and student engagement. PLS-SEM showed that both administrative processes and academic processes almost equally affect student engagement. The discussion of results revealed that administrative processes, though equally important as academic processes, but previous research shows less focus on it. The study concluded that emotional engagement is the least focused area by the administration as well as academia. The study suggests the private universities in Lahore to focus on improving their focus on developing emotional engagement of their students to reap loyalty and organizational commitment of their students.