The relationship among the postgraduate research climate, service experience, quality and satisfaction

Abstract

Since quality assurance in postgraduate (PG) research is becoming increasingly important, this paper explores the relationship among the PG research climate and the PG students’ perception of their service experience, the service quality and their satisfaction with the PG service, by developing and empirically evaluating a conceptual model, using specifically developed and validated research instruments. By surveying the entire cohort of masters and doctorate graduates of a large research university in South Africa, and fitting the data to the conceptual model using structural equation modeling, it was ascertained that the PG research students’ perception of the research climate is associated with their perception of the PG service quality and the overall PG service experience. A significant relationship was also ascertained between the PG research service quality and PG service satisfaction. However, no direct association was ascertained between the PG research students’ perception of the research climate and their overall satisfaction with the research service. Key words: postgraduate (PG), research climate, students perception, higher education.