Academic nursing educators and students perception of institutional quality

Abstract

Background: Today, educational institutions are compelled to deliver quality service to their consumers to survive in competitive educational markets. Investigating educators' and students' perception and satisfaction with the institutional quality is significant to judge whether they had what they expected or not. Also, creating meaningful changes in universities or colleges, needs that educational leaders should attempt to analyze and interpret various consumers' opinions to improve the needed dimensions of educational quality. This study aims to investigate the perception of nursing educators and students of the institutional quality of Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Methods: A comparative descriptive research design was conducted at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Higher Education Institution Accreditation Questionnaire was given to 230 nursing educators and 450 nursing students to investigate their perception of the institutional quality. Results: The current study revealed that, institutional quality of the Faculty of Nursing was rated as moderate by both nursing educators and students. However, nursing educators and students different significantly in their overall ratings of institutional quality (t = 8.460, p ≤ .001) and its dimensions, including input (t = 7.856, p ≤ .001), process (t = 9.535, p ≤ .001) and output (t = 5.356, p ≤ .001). Faculty mission and purpose, teaching staff quality, excellence of facilities and resources and job expectation were the most prominent factors of institutional quality as perceived by nursing educators and students. In addition, perception of institutional quality also, affected by factors such as academic department, position, semester and participation in quality improvement-related activities. Conclusions: Positive institutional quality relates to a positive perception of both nursing educators and students of institutional quality. Various factors that affect consumers' perception and satisfaction of institutional quality should be considered and controlled by academic leaders in order to increase satisfaction and meeting consumers' expectations. Different strategies should be implemented to continue improvement of institutional quality of the Faculty of Nursing through enhancing a quality teaching framework which allows the institution to monitor, support, track nursing educators' and students' satisfaction, and study its impact on the teaching-learning process. Although perception of educators and students are important, institutional quality is more than what they perceive specific in a program like nursing. Further research study should examine other factors considered significant in determining institutional quality such as hiring rates, stakeholders and employers' satisfaction with nursing graduates.