Student satisfaction with Canadian music programmes: the application of the American Customer Satisfaction Model in higher education

The purpose of this project is to empirically investigate several antecedents and consequences of student satisfaction (SS) with Canadian university music programmes as well as to measure students’ level of programme satisfaction. For this, the American Customer Satisfaction Model was tested through a survey of 276 current Canadian music students. The results indicate that customer satisfaction is strongly affected by programme quality, is slightly impacted by its perceived value but is not influenced by prior student expectations. Satisfaction strongly increases programme loyalty and positive word‐of‐mouth, marginally raises tuition change loyalty, and slightly decreases complaining behaviour. Contrary to expectations, tuition‐related constructs play only a minor role in the model. Therefore, money is a marginal factor in the educational environment; this empirically demonstrates the flaws underlying the premises of the students‐as‐customers metaphor. The resulting satisfaction index may facilitate the comparison among institutions. It was also found that the level of SS with Canadian music programmes was somewhat lower than those with services in other industries.