Student Satisfaction Of Graduate Curriculum

Business English, as a major in Chinese higher education, has been given a lot of attention. To improve its education quality, many researches have been conducted, of which some focus on improving Business English curriculum. Curriculum, as a basic form of teaching and training students, is considered an indispensible part in graduate education. It has great significance to graduate students in expanding their knowledge volume and developing their research abilities. Although many researches have been done in the field of graduate curriculum, few of them are empirical studies from the perspective of students.This thesis offers an empirical study on student satisfaction of Business English graduate curriculum, aiming at finding out the level of student satisfaction, the degree of influence of various factors on student satisfaction, and the differences in the evaluations of students from different grades. Its ultimate goal is to explore possible solutions to improve student satisfaction of the Business English graduate curriculum. To get empirical data, it investigates Business English graduates’ satisfaction of the curriculum offered by the Business English graduate program in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. The tool used in the investigation is a self-designed questionnaire based on Student Satisfaction Index Model. The data collected is analyzed by software Spss 19.0 and Amos 20.0. The subjects of the investigation are the graduate students in the three-year Business English graduate program. The aspects investigated include curriculum design, course content, teaching, and performance assessment, etc.The findings of this study are as follows. In respect of overall student satisfaction, there is variance in students’ evaluation, as indicated by the long ranges and values of standard deviation. On the general level, overall student satisfaction of the graduate curriculum has reached medium level as indicated by the means of the manifest variables and the indexes of the seven latent variables.As for the influences on student satisfaction, of all the influential factors, perceived quality has the strongest influence on student satisfaction, followed by university image, and perceived value. University image, student expectation, perceived quality not only have a direct influence, but also an indirect influence on student satisfaction.The analysis of the satisfaction-importance matrix of latent variables shows that priority should be given to perceived quality to improve overall student satisfaction. A further analysis of the satisfaction-importance matrix of manifest variables of perceived quality discovers the aspects worth priority when educators are improving student satisfaction of perceived quality. They are the structure of the curriculum, the course content, teaching attitude of teachers.In respect of differences in views of students of different grades, differences do exist in the evaluations of students from different grade. These differences are found in student expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, overall student satisfaction, student complaint and student loyalty. Generally speaking, for most of the 26 variables, students of a higher grade tend to have a lower degree of satisfaction.