of a thesis sublnitted in partial fulfilhnent of the requirement for the Degree of M. c. M. UNIVERSITY STUDENT SATISFACTION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSISby Tzu-Hui Kao New Zealand's tertiary education sector has experienced political refolID, social changes, economic changes and globalisation in the last two decades, and the sector has become more internationally competitive. DeShields, Kara, and· Kaynak (2005) recommended that management of higher education should apply a market-oriented approach to sustain a competitive advantage. Therefore, understanding and managing students' satisfaction and their perceptions of service quality is important for university management if they are to design and implement a market-oriented approach.The purpose of this research is to ,gain an empirical understanding of students' overall satisfaction in a university in New Zealand's higher education sector. A hierarchal nlodel is used as a framework for the analysis. Fifteen hypotheses are formulated and tested to identify the dimensions of service quality as perceived by university students, to examine the relationship between students' overall satisfaction with influential factors such as tuition fees (price) and the university's image, and to determine the impact of students' overall satisfaction on favourable future behavioural intentions. In addition, students' perceptions of these constructs are compared using demographic factors such as gender, age, and ethnicity.The findings of the study are based on the analysis of a sample of 223 students studying at Lincoln University. Support is found for the use of a hierarchical model and the primary dimensions; Interaction Quality, Physical Environment Quality, and Outcome Quality, as broad dimensions of service quality. Ten sub-dimensions of service quality, as per~eived by -11 -students, are identified. These are: AcadeInic Staff, Administration Staff, AcadeInic Staff Availability, Course Content, Library, Physically Appealing, Social Factors, Personal Development, Academic Development, and Career Opportunities. The results indicate that each of the priInary dimensions vary in tenns of their importance to overall perceived service quality, as do the sub-dimensions to the plimary dimensions. In addition, the statistical results support a relationship between service quality and price; service quality, iInage, and satisfaction; and satisfaction and favourable future behavioural intentions. However, there is no statistical support for a relationship between price and satisfaction. The results also suggest that students' perceptions of the constructs are primarily influenced by their ethnicity and year of study.The results of the analysis contribute to the servIce marketing theory by providing an empirically based insight into the satisfaction and service quality constructs in the New Zealand higher education sector. The study also provides a analytical framework for understanding the effects of the three primary dimensions on service quality and the effects of service quality on ...