CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Background

Business  English,  as  a  major  in  Chinese  higher  education,  has  been  given  a  lot  of attention  in  order  to  improve its  education  quality.  Many  researches  have  been conducted  with  this  purpose,  and  among  these  studies  some focus  on  improving Business  English  curriculum.  Curriculum,  as  a  basic  form  of  teaching  and  training students,  is considered  an  indispensible  part  in  graduate  education.  It  has  great significance  to  graduate  students  in  expanding their  knowledge  volume  and developing  research  abilities.  Thus  it  has  attracted  a  lot  of  attention  from  both educators  and  graduate  students.  Although  many  researches  have  been  done  in  the field of graduate curriculum, few of them are empirical studies from the perspective of students. As students are the direct audience of curriculum, the author thinks  that students’ evaluation will give helpful insights to improve curriculum.

Therefore, this paper offers an empirical study from the perspective of graduate students,  aiming  at  finding  out possible  solutions  to  perfect   Business  English graduate curriculum. To get empirical data, it investigates Business English graduates’ satisfaction  of  the  curriculum  offered  by  the  Business  English  graduate  program  in Guangdong University  of  Foreign  Studies  (henceforth  GDUFS).  Thus,  this  thesis  is also  a  case  study.  The  subjects  of  the investigation  are  the  graduate  students  in  the three-year  Business  English  graduate  program.  The  aspects investigated  are curriculum design, course content, teaching, and performance assessment, etc. 

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1.2 Research Purpose and Significance

By  investigating  graduate  students’  satisfaction  of  the  Business  English  graduate program, the study tries to get full information on: First, what are their expectations from  the  curriculum  and  what  are  their  evaluation  of  the curriculum  in  terms  of  its value and quality; Second, to what extent they are loyal to the program and whether they have complaints ; Third, which aspects of the curriculum have greater influence on  student  satisfaction  than  others; Fourth,  whether  there  are  differences  in  student satisfaction between students of different grades in the program, and if yes, what are they,  and  what  are  the  possible  reasons.  The  information  will  give  insights  into  not only students’ overall perception of the program, but also suggestions about what can be done to improve student satisfaction as one possible way to improve the quality of curriculum. 

This  study  has  both  theoretical  and  practical  significance.  On  one  hand,  this paper  further  develops  student satisfaction  theory,  as  it  expands  student  satisfaction into   a new field , Business English education. On the other hand, it also enriches the research  in  Business  English  curriculum,  as  it  uses  student  satisfaction  as  a  tool  to explore ways to improve the quality of Business English curriculum.

Moreover, its practical significance is also obvious. Not only will it help teachers to  get  a  deeper  understanding  about how  to  improve  the  quality  of  the  graduate program, but also  give  educators insights into what can be done to perfect Business English graduate curriculum.

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CHAPTER TWO  LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Studies of Student Satisfaction

Researches  of  student  satisfaction  conducted  by  foreign  researchers  can  be generalized  into  three  classes.  The first  class  of  researches  focus  on  finding  out  the factors of student satisfaction. Among these researches, Aitken (1982) found out that there  was  a  significant  correlation  between  student  satisfaction  and  students’ performance  , their  satisfaction  and  isolation  of  courses,  teaching  and  major. Danielson (1998) believed that an active interaction between instructors and students was an important source of student satisfaction. Griffith (1999) found out in his study that  there  was  a  significant  correlation  between  student  satisfaction  and  the atmosphere of a university. Tsarenko and Mavondo (2004) generalized the source of a university into facilities, teaching , learning, library, service  for students and market orientation, and they concluded that the last five parts had close relationships among themselves  and  that the  decrease  of  them  would  lessen  student  satisfaction.  Rector (2002)  thought  that  the  influential  factors  of student  satisfaction  should  include students’ learning experience and social experience. The influential factors of leaning experience  included  variables  of  leaning  environment  and  teacher-student communication,  and  those  of  social experience  included  campus  atmosphere  and companion  relationship.  In  the  study  of  Debnath  (1987),  it  was found  out  that  the most important influential factor of student satisfaction was whether the student could get a job after finishing their study. Li-Wei Mai (2005) concluded from his research that students’ overall impression of a university and the quality of education had the biggest influence on student satisfaction.

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2.2 Previous Studies of Graduate Curriculum

As  this  thesis  is  a  case  study  of  a  graduate  program  in  China,  and  differences  exist between  graduate programs  in  China  and  other  countries,  studies  done  in  a  Chinese graduate environment will give more enlightenments, so the literature review of this part  only  covers  domestic  researches  .  The  researches  can  be roughly  divided  into three groups. 

The first group of researches explain the importance of curriculum   instruction in  graduate  education.  Dihong  Bao  and  Xuemei  Jiang  (2005)  pointed  out  that curriculum instruction was a critical process for graduates to expand their knowledge and  to  develop  their  ability  and  that  it  laid  the  foundation  of  conducting  academic research.  Shipeng Yan  and  Chunying  Li  (2003)  asserted  that  curriculum  instruction had  always  been  the  most  important  part  in graduate  education  because  it  was different  from  that  of  undergraduate  education  and  a  different  model should be established. Beizhan Wang and Husheng  Lu (2005) argued that it  was necessary for graduates  to  build  their knowledge  structure  and  capability  and  that  it  had  a  direct effect on fostering their critical thinking and innovation ability. Many other researches also  agree  with  this  view.(Weiping  Miao,  2004;  Jing  Wen,  Xianli  Hu,  2006). Generally  this  group  of  researchers  acknowledge  the  significance  of  curriculum instruction in graduate research, but they all take a perspective of the educators rather than the students, and their argumentation seems to be quite subjective without actual evidence of the importance of curriculum instruction. 

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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FOUNDATION ................ 11

3.1 Customer Satisfaction .......... 11

3.2 The American Customer Satisfaction Index ........... 12

CHAPTER FOUR RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................... 22

4.1 Establishment of the Student Satisfaction Model ................ 22

4.2 Design of the Questionnaire............. 23

CHAPTER FIVE DATA ANALYSIS ....................29

5.1 Descriptive Analysis of the Data ................ 29

CHAPTER FIVE  DATA ANALYSIS

5.1 Descriptive Analysis of the Data

In  this  part,  the  author  will  undertake  a  detailed  descriptive  analysis  of  the  data collected in order to get a full picture of student satisfaction of the graduate program. The data of the questionnaires is put into   Spss 19.0. It covers the answers of the 90 students  in  the  three-year  program.  Detailed  information  of  each  manifest  variable under a construct  includes  number  of  manifest  variable,  minimum  value,  maximum value and standard deviation, which can be seen clearly in Table 5-1.

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CHAPTER SIX  FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

From  the  above  analysis,  the  major  findings  are  as  follows:  In  respect  of  overall student satisfaction, there is actual   variance in students’ evaluation, as indicated by the  long  ranges  and  values  of  standard  deviation.  Of  all the  seven  constructs  of student satisfaction model, variance in student complaint and student loyalty is more obvious compared  with  the  other  5  constructs.  Variance  in  students’  evaluation  of university  image  and  student expectation  is  less.  On  the  general  level,  student satisfaction of the graduate curriculum has reached medium level as indicated by the means  of  the  manifest  variables  and  the  indexes  of  the  seven  latent  variables.  The indexes of the latent variables in descending order are put as follows: index of student expectation  (74.67),  index  of  university image  (68.96),  index  of  perceived  quality (63.83),  index  of  perceived  value  (62.04),   index  of  overall  student satisfaction (61.12),  index  of  student  loyalty  (53.17),  and  index  of  student  complaint  (35.54). Students’ evaluation of university image and student expectation is of a higher level than  that  of  the  other  5  constructs. Students’  evaluation  of  student  complaint  and student  loyalty  is  of  a  lower  level  compared  with  that  of  the other  5  constructs, indicating that students have a lower degree of confidence of complaints handling and loyalty.  For the  quality  and  value  of  the  graduate  curriculum,  students  have  a  mild degree of satisfaction. 

reference(omitted)