Student-to-Faculty Connectedness as a Dominant Predictor of First-Year Student Satisfaction: A Post-Pandemic Services Marketing Perspective

Abstract

Higher education institutions have long debated the fundamental problem of whether student connectedness or student involvement plays a more crucial role in first-year student satisfaction. Analyzing National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) data for first-year cohorts before and after the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 2,306), we empirically test hypotheses related to the guiding research question: Which one is a bigger predictor of student satisfaction in higher education: student connectedness or student involvement? In addition to applying services marketing to higher education, we compared pre-pandemic and post-pandemic student satisfaction data. Regression results suggest that while both student connectedness and involvement positively impact satisfaction, student connectedness emerges as the stronger predictor. Specifically, student connectedness to faculty (versus to other students) matters more to satisfaction than student involvement. A lot more.