Experience and satisfaction: Exploring students’ perceptions of private and public higher education services

Academic resilience and emotional intelligence are considered important personal resources for furthering students’ academic performance. However, many educational organizations seem to trivialize the performance implications of these constructs in teachings and curriculum. Consequently, it can decrease not just their academic performance but also their employability, as they lack the generic competencies to adapt and survive in a stressful context. Even so, empirical evidence on integrating academic resilience, emotional intelligence, and academic performance remains unexplored in the Nigerian university context. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate the linkages between academic resilience, emotional intelligence, and academic performance in Nigeria. The partial least square (PLS) modeling method was utilized for testing the stated hypotheses with data collected from 179 final year undergraduate students in the regular B.Sc. Business Administration and B.Sc. Marketing program at Delta State University, Nigeria. From the PLS results, the study reported that academic resilience was positively related to emotional intelligence (β = 0.125, p = 0.007), academic resilience (β = 0.231, p = 0.000) and emotional intelligence (β = 0.260, p = 0.000) were positively related to academic performance, and emotional resilience mediated the positive relationship between academic resilience and academic performance (β = 0.057, p = 0.005). While academic resilience predicted academic performance, it also predicted emotional intelligence, which affected academic performance significantly and positively.

Due to the country’s lack of natural resources and its dependence on human resources, Jordanian universities have started to implement quality assurance system aiming to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the higher educational system. This paper presents the results of a research that aims to identify the main issues and challenges facing these universities in implementing quality assurance system. Data for this research were collected using a survey mailed to all public and private universities to investigate the main issues affecting the implementation of quality assurance system in Jordanian universities. The results of this research showed that the most important challenges faced by Jordanian universities are: human and lack of awareness, resistance to change and cultural among others. The research findings hoped to be useful for both universities and policy makers in the government in order to realize the full benefits of implementing quality assurance system. Hence, this and other research on implementing quality assurance in higher educational institutions might be of assistance.

Commodities are products with low economic value, but when related to experience, they can turn into profitable businesses. In the present work, the authors seek to understand consumer behavior in the coffee industry, guided by the following research question: How can customer experience affect price perception? To answer this question, the researchers conducted an analysis using the four realms of experience from Pine and Gilmore (1999, 2011) – entertainment, education, esthetics, and escapist – and how they behave according to different kinds of customer experience, as well as their relation to price perception. To understand this, the authors conducted qualitative research with 40 consumers in two important coffee companies: Starbucks and Costa Coffee. The coffee shops analyzed are located in the city of Marbella, Spain. The results of this research show that customers are aware of the price discrepancy, but still frequenting coffee shops for different experiences according to their interests. This work is groundbreaking because of the analysis of the four realms of experience and its correlation with the price perception. The authors also introduced to the customer experience field the analysis of the four realms in the coffee shop industry. Finally, from the research results, the authors suggest various managerial practices that can improve customer experience and the perception of prices.