Real estate student satisfaction in Australia : what matters most?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the relative importance of the factors that influence the overall satisfaction of real estate students and also examine the extent to which demographic backgrounds affect this. Furthermore, this paper benchmarks the satisfaction of real estate students against that of built environment students. Design/methodology/approach: The data used in this paper have been collected from the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) within the Australian Graduate Survey (AGS). Dimensionality reduction was used to prepare the data about the courses identified in the AGS for analysis. This was done in order to simplify classification of real estate and built environment courses examined in this paper. Descriptive and statistical analysis methods were used to analyse student satisfaction variables and identify the extent to which demographic factors influenced overall student satisfaction. Findings: Real estate students in Australia have a relatively higher level of student satisfaction compared to built environment students overall, but built environment students have a higher level of satisfaction with regard to compulsory variables such as “Good Teaching Scale” and “Generic Skills Scale”. However, real estate students show a higher level of agreement in the Likert scale regarding the optional variables “Appropriate Assessment” and “Learning Community”, respectively. The most important factor for overall student satisfaction was the question: “the staff made it clear right from the start what they expected from the students”. The answers to this question had a Pearson correlation value of 1.000 for both real estate and built environment students. Age and mode of study also have some impact on the overall satisfaction level of both sets of students, while gender, degree class and the year the university were established are additional factors affecting the overall satisfaction of built environment students. Practical implications: This research identifies the factors that affect the satisfaction of property course students in ascending order of importance. Course directors of real estate courses can use the findings of this research to make recommendations on the redesign and redevelopment of their courses in order to make them more attractive and appealing to students to enhance student recruitment and retention. Originality/value: This is pioneering research that provides a comprehensive overview of the factors affecting student satisfaction with regard to real estate and built environment students in Australia.