1 Introduction
Hostels are used for the accommodation of students and travelers. School, colleges, or universities encompasses a place of hostel flat. A large number of students use the hostel facilities. Hostel facilities can be defined as rooms furnished with sophisticated amenities suitable for social activities and indicative of a certain lifestyle [20]. Similarly, [14] described that residential satisfaction among students depends on residential facilities, study environments, and relationship among residents. A secure and healthy environment can encourage the students' health and refresh dynamic learning [12]. However, some of the hostels do not meet a simple standard of a student residence. Students living in hostels face many problems such as economic, adjustment issues, home sickness, food quality, and many other problems.
Nowadays, resident satisfaction has been used as a vital indicator to evaluate students’ accommodation facilities. Good accommodation has a significant impact on the studies of students [7]. Consequently, the factors affecting resident’s satisfaction will provide guidance to the resident planner, designers, and policy makers [22]. Various scholars in previous studies have specifically concentrated on student residence satisfaction. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been conducted to understand the resident’s satisfaction in the major metropolitan city of Pakistan i.e., Faisalabad. To fill the gap in the literature, the objective of the present study is
1) To identify factors of satisfaction for the users of hostel facilities; 2) To investigate the impact of different factors on the customer satisfaction, and 3) To suggest policy implications for stakeholders
The paper has four sections, the first section deals with the literature review, the second section describes the research methodology, and section three explains the results and discussion. The final section discusses the main outcomes and implications of the study.
2 Literature Review
Several studies were conducted to explain various determinants of resident satisfaction such as [5] presented students’ viewpoints and how resident amenities impact the satisfaction. The study used purposive sampling and obtained information from 476 respondents. The study's outcomes showed that community amenities, locality features, and accommodation features were the foremost cause of residents’ gratification. [6] explained the relationship between housing features and residents’ satisfaction. Data were composed of 517 residents, and a regression model was employed. The study presented housing gratification level by four measurements that contain in commercial & societal atmosphere, physical lodging conditions, occupants' safety & privacy, place, and entrances. Housing gratification level is forcefully affected by lodging capability. [1] examined the relationship between various hostel facilities and resident’s satisfaction. For this purpose, they have obtained information from families residing in hostels in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria. They collected data from 856 respondents and applied a regression model. The study results showed that the locality and cleanliness have a significant impact on the residents’ satisfaction. [9] investigated the impact of various factors on the choice of hostel. For this purpose, they collected information from 350 respondents and applied a logistic regression model. The study concluded that security and water has a significant impact on the choice of hostel. [10] investigated the effect of cleanliness on the residents. Using the convenience sampling technique, they collected primary data from 100 students and 30 management representatives. The study results showed that the absence of cleaning staff, lack of water, etc. were considered as major factors. [17] considered the effect of social features on educational performance of students. Self-administered questionnaire were utilized to collect information from 250 respondents. The study revealed that insufficiency places, absence of internet facilities, overloading and non-availability of leisure services were considered as important factors for hostel residents. The study further mentioned that hostel management should improve the residents' cupboards and waste disposal or air conditioner facilities. [18] specified that kitchens, private washrooms, study lounges, and social spaces were considered necessities in student housing, and these facilities have a significant impact on the resident’s satisfaction. [13] found such facilities as the overall quality of accommodation, requirements of lights, availability of electricity and water supply, bedroom facility, rules, and regulations or physical atmosphere of accommodation, received good ratings from the students. According to [16], the level of users’ satisfaction with some parameters such as noiselessness, indoor temperatures, natural lighting, ventilation, and water supply was good. [4] concluded that cleanliness, and safety plays an important role in the resident’s satisfaction. [3] emphasize the need for internet access, either through a network connection or Wi-Fi, in each student’s room for their research.
Hostel users face a lot of storage problems due to limited space in the wardrobe; they cannot store their clothes, shoes, and other storage accessories [19]. The prior study indicated that some students were not satisfied due to the availability of CCTV cameras in their residences and the effectiveness of security guards [8]. [4] concluded that staff was the most important dimension in explaining the willingness to recommend hostels. In the past decades, numerous studies have focused on issues relating to residents’ satisfaction; however, there are still gaps in the literature since the field of campus safety still growing in countries [11]. The present study fills the gap in the literature by addressing the determinants of residents’ satisfaction in the metropolitan city of a developing country i.e., Pakistan.
3 Research Methodology
The motive of this study is to discover the determinants of residents’ satisfaction with hostel facilities. For the present study, the data were collected from a metropolitan city i.e., Faisalabad, Pakistan, using a self-administered questionnaire. Following [21] and [9], data from 500 girls' hostel residents were collected by using a convenience sampling technique. The relationship between resident’s satisfaction and various hostel facilities can be written as
Y=F (Xi) (1)
Where:
Y= resident’s satisfaction and X denotes various factors affecting resident satisfaction such as mess, water, cleanliness, internet, wardrobe, fridge, staff, security, parking area, laundry and public hostel.
A dichotomous response strategy was used to collect the information of residents’ satisfaction and the facilities available to the residents. The Logistic regression analysis was applied. It estimates the probability of residents’ satisfaction by fitting data to a logistic curve. Binary logistics regression is often used when the independent variables are categorical or continuous, and the dependent variable is dichotomous.
The econometric model can be written as follows:
Probability of resident’s satisfaction = \( \frac{1}{{1+e^{-({∝_{1}}+{∝_{2}}{X_{i}})}}} \) (2)
Further, the present study computes the marginal effect of kth facility by Xk = Pr(Y = 1|X, Xk = 1) – Pr(y=1|X, Xk = 0). It shows how P(Y=1) changes as the categorical variable changes from 0 to 1, holding all other variables at their means.
4 Results and Discussion
The result of the study showed that 72.8 % of respondents were satisfied with the given facilities at their hostels. Out of 500, 54.8% of respondents said that the mess facility is available in their hostel. The benefit of the mess facility available in the girls' hostel is that they do not need to go outside the hostels to buy food. 81.4% of respondents’ said that the drinking water is available in their hostel, as shown in table 1. Cleanliness in the highest hygiene standards in hostels, 77.6% say that the hostel has a cleaning facility/staff available. The current study revealed that most of the respondents were satisfied with the cleaning facility/staff of their hostels. The data were obtained from 50 % of respondents from public and private hostels.
The pseudo-R2 shows 0.1762, which means that 17.6% variation in resident’s satisfaction is due to independent variables i.e., mess, water, cleanliness, internet, wardrobe, fridge, staff, security, parking area, laundry, and public hostel. The Wald test statistic is 85.22, significant at a one percent significance level. It indicates that the overall model is significant. The coefficient of mess facility is significant at 5 percent level of significance. The coefficient shows that the mess facility positively impacts user gratification. The marginal effect of the mess facility indicates that the chances of customer satisfaction will be 0.1208 more if the mess facility is available in a hostel relative to if the mess facility is not available. The study implies that each hostel should need to provide a well-equipped mess for their users in their hall of residence. These results are consistent with the findings of [2]. They believed that every hostel should provide nutritious and delicious food items for its residents. It will have a significant positive impact on the health of residents. The availability of drinking water has a significant positive impact on the resident’s satisfaction. The probability of customer satisfaction will be 0.1910 more for the availability of drinking water supply relative to if it is not available in hostels. [15] concluded that hostel authorities should provide a sufficient water supply for their residential users. The facility of staff has a significant relationship with customer gratification. The staff facility has a positive impact on user satisfaction. The marginal effect of the availability of helping staff is 0.2788. It shows that the probability of the resident’s satisfaction is 0.2788 more than if helping staff is not available (see table 2). These results are in line with [4]. The coefficient of security shows a positive relationship with the resident’s satisfaction. The marginal effect of security is 0.1283, it indicates that there are 0.1283 higher probability of resident’s satisfaction if security is available in the hostel. The parents consider security as an important factor when deciding about the stay of their daughters in the developing country; similar findings have been reported by [4]. The coefficients of cleanliness, internet, fridge, parking area, laundry and public hostel are insignificant. This means that residents are not assigning any importance to these facilities. Normally, girls (hostel residents) clean their room by themselves, so the non-availability of cleanliness services is having no significant impact. Different cellphone service providers are offering internet packages at a very affordable rate, so the availability of the internet is not considered an important facility by the residents. Hostel residents did not own any vehicles, so the parking area was not considered an important factor in residents’ satisfaction. The residents did not consider public or private hostel ownership a critical attribute, as the residents care for the facilities, not the ownership.
Table 2. Estimates of Logistic Regression Model and Marginal Effect.
Variables | Coefficient | Robust Std. Err. | Z | P Value | Marginal Effect | |
Mess | 0.6620* | 0.2443 | 2.7100 | 0.0070 | 0.1208 | |
Water | 0.9325* | 0.2789 | 3.3400 | 0.0010 | 0.1910 | |
Cleanliness | -0.4139 | 0.2840 | -1.4600 | 0.1450 | -0.0699 | |
Internet | 0.3625 | 0.3225 | 1.1200 | 0.2610 | 0.0696 | |
Wardrobe | 0.4766** | 0.2454 | 1.9400 | 0.0520 | 0.0888 | |
Fridge | -0.4725** | 0.2751 | -1.7200 | 0.0860 | -0.0858 | |
Staff | 1.3706* | 0.2532 | 5.4100 | 0.0000 | 0.2788 | |
Security | 0.6658* | 0.2665 | 2.5000 | 0.0120 | 0.1283 | |
Parking area | 0.1726 | 0.2637 | 0.6500 | 0.5130 | 0.0314 | |
Laundry | 0.0473 | 0.2623 | 0.1800 | 0.8570 | 0.0085 | |
Public hostel | -0.0348 | 0.2853 | -0.1200 | 0.9030 | -0.0063 | |
Constant | -1.5986* | 0.5551 | -2.8800 | 0.0040 | ||
Pseudo-R2 = 0.1762 | Wald \( χ_{11}^{2} \) = 85.22* | |||||
*, ** Shows that coefficient is significant at 1%, 10% respectively
5 Conclusion
The primary purpose of this study is to identify the factors and its impact on hostel residents’ satisfaction. For this purpose, the primary data relating to facilities offered by hostels such as mess, water, wardrobe, fridge, staff, security, parking area, and laundry were collected from 500 respondents residing in both public and private hostels. The findings of this study indicate that hostel needs to provide a high standard of facilities to their residents. The study results showed that mess plays an important role in the resident’s satisfaction. In order to enhance residents’ satisfaction, the management should provide a mess facility, that may include nutritious and delicious food items. The drinking water availability has a significant positive impact on residents' satisfaction. Therefore, the management should supply the facility of drinking water. Cleanliness in the highest standard of hygiene in hostels. Hostel management should provide housekeeping facilities for their residents. The present study suggests that hostel authorities should provide all functional facilities for their users that meet the compulsory conditions and standards to improve students learning outcomes. The current study's findings can be useful for hostel authorities in improving facilities, enhancing their competitive standard, and maintaining policies for all public & private hostels. Non-significant level of certain variables showed that these variables are not playing a significant role in the residents' satisfaction, so the management does not need to spend money and time to provide these facilities.