A Qualitative Study of Teacher and Student Satisfaction in Universities of Islamabad

Abstract

This qualitative research aims to explore and understand the concept of satisfaction for teachers and students relative to their universities. In terms of teachers, this study looks at how satisfied teachers are with the university as employees of that particular organization. Similarly for students, this research seeks to understand how satisfied students are with their respective universities. Five major universities in Islamabad were selected as a target for this research namely Bahria University, COMSATS, FAST, Iqra University and SZABIST. In all five of these universities a total of thirty in-depth interviews was conducted over a period of one month. There were six interviews for each university with three teacher and three student interviews. The interviews were conducted in each university for each group till saturation was reached. The respondents were selected without any consideration of their socio-economic background, rank or qualification. The only consideration taken into account was that all teacher respondents were permanent faculty of bachelors programs. The student respondents were however considered randomly making the sampling technique for this research random and purposive. A number of factors and dimensions were identified and set deliberately for this research to understand the level of satisfaction for both teachers and students. The factors that helped understand job satisfaction for teachers were salary, increments in salary, system of promotions, professional growth (in terms of further education for teachers, research and trainings), human resource management, time requirements, workload and leaves. The factors that were selected as determinants of student satisfaction were fee structure, variety of programs offered at the university, liberty to express and contribute in class, evaluation for teachers, attendance, grading criteria, relevancy and appropriateness of taught courses and general satisfaction with the degree and overall university experience.