The Impact of Academic Aspect Quality on Student Disengagement in Higher Education

Abstract

Higher education (HE) in developing countries like Vietnam has shown to be a growing sector even under the worldwide impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to the typical characteristics of education in general and HE in particular, there is a crucial issue for HE institutes in balancing growing objectives as a service business and quality assurance objectives including student engagement. The current literature still lacks studies on student disengagement in HE as it focuses on the positive valence of engagement. Hence, this study aims to determine the impact of perceived academic aspect quality (PAAQ) on student disengagement (SD) intention and actual behavior under the lens of extended TRA. The results of our structural equation model reveal the full mediating role of student dissatisfaction in the relationship between PAAQ on SD intention. Once the students have the intention to disengage in learning tasks, they are most likely to act on it. Perceived disengaged behavior cost is robustly proved as a key driver of SD behavior intention and actual disengagement behavior.