The Impacts of a Redefined HEI Image Model on Postgraduate International Students' Satisfaction in Malaysia

Abstract

The influx of international students has moved beyond the Global North towards the Global South in countries like China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong as they pursue strategies to become an international education hub in Asia. This massive competition among higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide necessitates revisiting the existing image models to understand their heightened impacts on student satisfaction for both retaining existing students and attracting new ones. This study attempts to do so by gathering responses from 200 international postgraduate students from two renowned universities in Malaysia. The redefined HEI image model based on postgraduate international students shows that all of its three dimensions have a positive significant impact on students' satisfaction and decision-making. The outcomes of importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) have yielded the results of PLS-SEM both at the construct and indicator levels toward building more socially responsible HEIs as a service industry to boost student satisfaction in both regular and uncertain times.