Integrating Structural Equation Modeling and Support Vector Machines to Explore the Mechanisms Between Moral Education Perception and Satisfaction Among International Students

This study investigates the relationship between Moral Education Perception (MEP) and Campus Satisfaction (CS) among international students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan studying in mainland China. In order to address the intricate interplay among moral education, cultural orientation, and student well-being, an integrated methodology is proposed, combining Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). SVMs were employed to model the direct and indirect effects of MEP, Collectivism Orientation (CO), and Individualism Orientation (IO) on CS revealing that MEP exerts a positive influence on CS both directly and indirectly with CO serving as a partial mediator. Conversely, the interaction between CO and IO exhibits a negative chain mediation effect. Subsequently, SVMs were employed to predict the student satisfaction categories based on latent variables extracted from Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The model attained a classification accuracy of 85.1% and an accuracy of 0.887, thereby substantiating its robustness in handling non-linear relationships. These findings provide educational institutions with actionable insights that may be of use in the pursuit of enhancing CS through culturally sensitive moral education programs and data-driven policy design.