Relationship between the Educational Service Quality, Student Satisfaction, School Trust, and Student Loyalty among Chinese University Students

Objectives This study aims to determine the structural relationships between the educational service quality, student satisfaction, school trust, and student loyalty among Chinese university students. Methods Therefore, from January 12 to February 1, 2024, a mobile phone questionnaire survey was conducted among 608 sophomores, juniors and seniors in 37 four-year universities in Jilin Province, China. To test the hypotheses about the relationships between latent variables, a structural equation model analysis was conducted, and the Bootstrap method was used to verify the mediating effects. Results First, educational service quality has a positively affects student satisfaction and school trust, but it does not directly affect student loyalty. Second, student satisfaction positively affects both school trust and student loyalty. Third, school trust positively affects student loyalty. Fourth, student satisfaction has a positive mediating role between educational services quality and student trust. Fifth, student satisfaction has a positive mediating role between educational services quality and student loyalty. Sixth, student trust in the university serves as a positive mediator between educational services quality and student loyalty. Seventh, the impact of the educational services quality on student satisfaction is the greatest, followed by school trust. Student satisfaction has the greatest impact on student loyalty, followed by school trust. Eighth, the educational services quality does not directly affect student loyalty but has an indirect impact through the mediating variables of student satisfaction and school trust, with the student satisfaction -> school trust path being the most critical mediating path. The educational services quality, including indirect effects through student satisfaction and school trust, determines approximately 69% of student loyalty. Conclusions Student satisfaction and school trust are the variables that have a positive impact on student loyalty directly, while educational service quality is the indirect variable. Educational service quality can directly improve school satisfaction and school trust, so in order to improve school loyalty, educational service quality must be improved. From this point of view, the quality of educational services is the most important variable among the three variables. As a means of development, universities should first improve the quality of educational services if they want to increase the loyalty of students. Therefore, universities need to find out what problems exist in major aspects of education such as teachers, environment, curriculum, administration, and welfare, which determine the quality of educational services, and improve them. At the same time, it is necessary to identify the factors that can directly improve student satisfaction, school trust, and student loyalty, and strive to directly improve them.