Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a continuous improvement project (CIP) at a Mexican university designed to increase engineering graduate student loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach

A plan-do-check-act problem-solving methodology was implemented, and a SERVQUAL survey was conducted on 67 master’s engineering students.

Findings

Five factors were found to affect student loyalty: facility cleanliness; faculty teaching skills; evening student services; master’s degree student management roles at work; and master’s degree students’ ages. After the implementation of the improvement and control actions, there was a 7.7% increase in the engineering master’s degree students’ loyalty scores.

Research limitations/implications

However, there were several research limitations: data availability (such as student loyalty, student satisfaction and a small master’s degree student population size) and factors outside the CIP’s scope (such as the country’s economic situation, university rankings, master’s programme accreditations and COVID-19).

Practical implications

The findings from this research study could be used by other higher education institutions (HEIs)to improve student loyalty and as a reference when conducting similar studies in other service organisations such as hospitals and hotels.

Originality/value

This research work took a different approach in assessing student satisfaction and student loyalty in a HEI by using the SERVQUAL survey as the data collection instrument for conducting CIP.

中文翻译：

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提高大学的服务质量：一个持续改进的项目

目的

本文的目的是评估墨西哥大学旨在提高工程研究生忠诚度的持续改进项目 (CIP)。

设计/方法/方法

实施了计划-执行-检查-行动问题解决方法，并对 67 名工程硕士研究生进行了 SERVQUAL 调查。

发现

发现影响学生忠诚度的五个因素是：设施清洁度；教师教学技能；夜间学生服务；工作中的硕士学位学生管理角色；和硕士生的年龄。改进和控制措施实施后，工程硕士研究生的忠诚度得分提高了7.7%。

研究限制/影响

但是，存在一些研究局限性：数据可用性（例如学生忠诚度、学生满意度和较小的硕士学位学生人数）和 CIP 范围之外的因素（例如国家经济状况、大学排名、硕士课程认证和 COVID- 19）。

实际影响

这项研究的结果可以被其他高等教育机构 (HEI) 用来提高学生的忠诚度，并作为在其他服务机构（如医院和酒店）进行类似研究时的参考。

原创性/价值

这项研究工作采用了一种不同的方法，通过使用 SERVQUAL 调查作为进行 CIP 的数据收集工具来评估 HEI 的学生满意度和学生忠诚度。