The quality of classroom facilities is critical to the effective delivery of an MBA program and influences student perceptions about the quality of the program.  Students express dissatisfaction with their MBA experience because they perceive the work load in required and elective classes to be too heavy to facilitate effective learning.  The higher the grade-point-average of students, the more satisfied they are with the program.  More mature students with substantive work experience are more satisfied with their MBA experience than are students with less work experience.  Do all of these statements ring true?  Based on a study conducted by AACSB and EBI last spring of 3,300 graduating full-time MBA students at 64 schools, all of these statements are false.  What are the variables that most affect student perceptions about the quality of their MBA experience?  The AACSB/EBI Student Satisfaction Project attempts to shed some light on this important question.

"Deans, faculty and MBA program managers are focusing their attention on student satisfaction as it becomes a more important measure of the quality of MBA programs," said Joe Pica, managing director of EBI.  "Potential students seek measures of satisfaction in their evaluation of programs, organizations who conduct rankings evaluate the quality of programs based on it, and faculty are evaluated based on student perceptions of their educational experiences."  Deans often turn to students to determine which aspects need to be addressed to improve the quality of the MBA program.  "It is difficult to understand how satisfied students are with their MBA program, particularly without external reference points," added Don Bell, assistant dean at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.  "Even more elusive is determining what is most critical to predicting students; satisfaction."  Factors that may appear intuitively important to satisfaction do not always prove to be relevant.  The results of the first edition of the AACSB/EBI Student Satisfaction Project provide evidence to challenge some intuitive beliefs and support other perceptions about what are the most important predictive elements to overall student satisfaction.

Institutions participating in this project received a comprehensive report of how their students responded on a 1 - 7 scale for each of 120 questions across a wide spectrum of areas within their MBA program experience.  Schools also received comparative information about how their students' satisfaction compared to those of six peer/competitor programs of their choice, as well as comparisons to public and private school averages on each question.  These comparisons with other schools proved significant in getting the attention of faculty about problem areas that need attention.

As Dan Dalton, interim dean of the Indiana University School of Business and statistician by training, said in reviewing the collected data from the project, "The goal in managing effectively in higher education is to allow managers to focus their energy and limited resources on addressing those elements that will have the greatest probability of positively influencing overall student satisfaction.  Studies like this help us understand where to put those resources at our individual schools."

A Factor Analysis of Full-Time MBA Programs

• There are several ways to capture overall satisfaction with an MBA program.  The study relied on three questions, each of which were presented in a 7-point Likert format.
   
• To what extent did your MBA experience fulfill your expectations?
   
• When you compare the total expense to the quality of education, how do you rate the value of the investment you made in your MBA program?
   
• How inclined are you to recommend your MBA program to a close friend?

Of the many general areas that are relevant to the delivery of an MBA program and that might affect a student's satisfaction with the overall program, the study relied on the following:

• Quality of Faculty and Instruction for Required MBA Courses
• Quality of Faculty and Instruction for Elective MBA Courses
• Quality of Placement and Career Services
• Access, Responsiveness and Leadership of the Dean
• Quality of Faculty and Non-Faculty Student Advising
• Student Organizations and Extracurricular Activities
• Program Diversity (Minority and International Students)
• Amount of and Quality of Classmates' Work Experience
• Academic Quality, Teamwork and Camaraderie of Classmates
• Quality of Classroom Facilities
• Quality of Computing Facilities

The study also looked at the potential relationship that might exist between student profile information on which many MBA programs rely when making admission decisions and students' subsequent overall satisfaction with the program.  These included students' GMAT scores, MBA grade-point-average and years of work experience.  The study also included questions relating to student work load requirements.

The Results
What Does and Doesn't Matter?

The results of the analyses done by Dalton on behalf of AACSB and EBI were interesting on a number of dimensions.  The single best predictor of overall satisfaction with MBA programs was satisfaction with the quality and instruction in required classes.  The preeminence of this element relates to a reality of MBA student life: Often students simply can not avoid such courses; there is little choice of courses and/or professors.  If the course results in a poor experience for a student, he or she would share little of the responsibility.

The quality of placement and career services was the second most important indicator of overall MBA student satisfaction.  This will not be surprising to most observers as placement opportunities are clearly a critical end stage for most MBA students.

It also is apparent that the academic quality of classmates, their capacity to work effectively in teams and their camaraderie are all important elements of the MBA students' experience and contribute greatly to their perceptions of the overall quality of their MBA experience.

Another aspect that was influential in determining a students' overall satisfaction with the program was perceptions of the dean of the School or College of Business.  It is clear that access to the dean, his or her responsiveness to student concerns, and the leadership emanating from the dean's office are important factors in overall student satisfaction.

MBA students also seem to appreciate the activities provided by student organizations, as well as opportunities for students to assume leadership roles and responsibilities in extracurricular activities.

There are several additional factors which, while they are indicators of overall student satisfaction in a statistical sense, were of less substantive importance to the 3,300 students participating in the study.  These include the quality of the faculty and instruction for elective MBA courses, the quality of computing facilities, and the quality of faculty and non-faculty student advising.  Satisfaction levels did not vary in a statistically significant way with differences in students' GMAT scores, prior work experience or student diversity.

As indicated at the beginning of the article (and in Table 1), there also were several factors that had no impact on overall student satisfaction for the students in this study.  As Dalton commented regarding the project results, "Deans need to know what students think about a number of variables at their schools and be able to compare their students' responses with peer, competitor and industry averages.  Having these comparative contexts makes all the difference in effectively analyzing student opinion."

"While the results of this study provide insight into MBA students in general, it is possible to analyze individual school data to specifically determine the most critical student satisfaction factors," said Pica.  "Armed with this knowledge, MBA program managers can make decisions to alter their programs to improve overall student satisfaction.  Once implemented, it would seem logical to continue the assessment process to determine if the interventions were indeed successful."

Table 1:

Major Predictors (in order of importance) of Overall Student Satisfaction in Full-Time MBA Programs

• Quality of Faculty and Instruction for Required MBA Courses
   
• Quality of Placement and Career Services
   
• Teamwork, Academic Quality and Camaraderie of Classmates
   
• Access, Responsiveness, and Leadership of the Dean
   
• Student Organizations and Extracurricular Activities

Minor Predictors (in order of importance) of Overall Student Satisfaction in Full-Time MBA Programs

• Quality of Faculty and Instruction for Elective MBA Courses
   
• Quality of Computing Facilities
   
• Quality of Faculty and Non-Faculty Student Advising
   
• Students' GMAT Score
   
• Students' Work Experience
   
• Program Diversity (Minority and International Students)

Predictors That Have NO impact on Overall Student Satisfaction in Full-Time MBA Programs

• Quality of Classroom Facilities
   
• MBA Students' Grade-Point-Average
   
• MBA Students' Work Experience
   
• Work Load for Required Courses
   
• Work Load for Elective Courses