QUALITY OF STUDENTS’ WELFARE SERVICES AND LEVEL OF STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION ON SERVICE DELIVERY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES: A CASE FOR MAASAI MARA UNIVERSITY, KENYA.

Abstract

Students’ welfare services in universities entail essential services that aim at promoting the physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing of learners at the university. Quality provision contributes to the wellbeing of the students, improve learning outcomes, students’ satisfaction and loyalty. The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of student’s welfare services and how it affects students’ level of satisfaction in public universities in Kenya and especially at Maasai Mara University. The objectives of the study were to: Examine the relationship between quality of catering services and student’s satisfaction; establish the relationship between quality of health care services and student’s satisfaction; find out the relationship between quality of guidance and counseling services and students’ satisfaction and; assess the relationship between quality of sports and recreation services and student’s satisfaction. The study used mixed-methods research design. The target population of the study constituted 2640 students in their third year of study and four (4) heads of sections offering students’ welfare services in the University. The sample size for the study were 332 third year students and the four (4) heads of sections who were sampled using both purposive and stratified sampling method. A student’s questionnaire (SQ) was used to collect data from the students. Interview guides were used to collect data from the heads of sections. A pilot of the instrument involving 33 students (10.0% of the sample size) from one of the Schools in the University was used to determine the reliability of the SQ using Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient of reliability. The school was exempted from the main study. The reliability coefficient of the SQ was .895. Data from the students’ questionnaire was analyzed quantitatively by use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Content analysis was used to analyze data from the section heads. The study found that there was a positive relationship between quality of students’ welfare services and student satisfaction at the university. Independently, quality of guidance and counseling services had the largest contribution on students’ satisfaction [R 2 = .322, F (1, 287) = 137.80, p = .000], followed by quality of health services [R 2 = .254, F (1, 287) = 99.268, p = .000] and quality of sports and recreation services [R 2 = .215, F (1, 287) = 78.759, p = .000]. Quality of catering services had the least contribution to students’ satisfaction in the University [R 2 = .056, F (1, 287) = 17.404, p = .000]. The study concludes that quality of students’ welfare services was positively and directly related to students’ satisfaction. Improvements in the average quality of guidance and counseling services, health services, sport and recreation services and catering services was likely to result to proportionate increase in students’ level of satisfaction in the University. The study recommends that the University should put more focus on the quality of guidance and counseling services as they were found to have more impact on students’ satisfaction.