Enhancing In-Bound Student Mobility in Kenyan Universities through Student Feedback on Their Satisfaction

Abstract

Quality education for attainment of sustainable development goals cannot exclude giving attention to students as global citizens. In the context of an ongoing trend of inter-regional and intra-regional student mobility, universities must consider hosting international students as a key attribute of internationalization of education and give attention to the needs of the international students they host. Feedback from students on their satisfaction with their university experiences is therefore vital for continuous quality improvement in universities. Understanding how different groups of students perceive their experiences is helpful in decision making to help meet diverse students’ needs. This paper focuses on feedback from international students enrolled in Christian universities in Kenya where a survey was conducted and cross-sectional data collected in the year 2017. Stratified random sampling was done for inclusivity of the various sub-groups of interest to the study. Overall satisfaction with students’ university experiences was sought and student characteristics were regarded as the dependent variables whose influence on the international students’ satisfaction is established. Relationships between students’ satisfaction and various student characteristics were determined through Mann-Whitney U tests and Kruskal Wallis tests which revealed that the variables of age, gender, current type of residence and the kind of accommodation preferred by international students had a significant relationship with students’ satisfaction. The findings revealed that the younger undergraduate students were significantly less satisfied than their older postgraduate counterparts and that female international students were significantly less satisfied than male students. University accommodation off campus was not just the least popular type of accommodation among international students; it also generated the least satisfaction. These are aspects to which educational administrators need to give attention in the endeavour to enhance service quality among international students in their institutions.