Examining Erasmus student social integration at two Croatian universities

The Impact of College Students’ Perceived Service Quality in the Context of Regional Integration of Education

“…Better learning services will enable students to interact with academics and gain cutting-edge knowledge in class, resulting in higher satisfaction levels, consistent with K€ uc x€ ukc xene & Akbasli's (2021) results. Social integration can alleviate pressure, improve academic performance, and increase student satisfaction, in line with the findings of Spencer Oatey and Dauber (2019) and Senci et al (2022). As customers of higher education, exchange students pay close attention to all aspects of the services provided by the receiving university, making service quality a critical factor in university decision-making processes.…”

“…The European Commission (2019) emphasizes the need to enhance the socio-academic experience of Erasmus students. Likewise, Bry1a (2015) and Senci et al (2022) highlight the significance of social integration as a crucial element of quality in Erasmus programs.…”

“…Theoretical Implication. Previous studies on expectations, service quality, and satisfaction have primarily relied on literature and self-constructed scales, such as those by Chelliah et al (2019), Senci et al (2022), andDursun Ergezen et al (2022). However, this study employs qualitative research methods, such as big data crawling and interviewing, to capture customers' feelings.…”

“…In general, perceived quality has a more significant impact on satisfaction than expectations (Ali et al, 2021; Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988; Yılmaz & Temizkan, 2022). Several scholars have also found that service quality affects the satisfaction of exchange students, such as teaching methods and intercultural experiences (Van der Beek et al, 2014), physical environment, price/fee, personal safety, and student-lecturer attachment (Chelliah et al, 2019), economic, communication, cultural, prejudice, and transportation factors (Acikgoz et al, 2020), and proposed extracurricular activities (Chaiyasat, 2020), Erasmus Student Network (ESN), online media use, among others (Senci et al, 2022). Therefore, perceived quality may play a more direct role in influencing satisfaction.…”