The Impact of Academic Aspect Quality on Student Disengagement in Higher Education

Thanh Thi Kim Pham 1,* , Dung Tri Vu 1 and Viet-Hung Dinh 2,3

1 Marketing Faculty, National Economics University, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam; dungvt@neu.edu.vn
2 Department of Academic Affairs, University of Labour and Social Affairs, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam;
hungdv@ulsa.edu.vn
3 Reduvation Research Group, Thanh Do University, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam
* Correspondence: thanhpham.neu@neu.edu.vn

Educ. Sci. 2022, 12, 507. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12080507
Received: 26 June 2022
Accepted: 18 July 2022
Published: 25 July 2022

Abstract:

Higher education (HE) in developing countries like Vietnam has shown to be a growing sector even under the worldwide impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to the typical characteristics of education in general and HE in particular, there is a crucial issue for HE institutes
in balancing growing objectives as a service business and quality assurance objectives including
student engagement. The current literature still lacks studies on student disengagement in HE as
it focuses on the positive valence of engagement. Hence, this study aims to determine the impact
of perceived academic aspect quality (PAAQ) on student disengagement (SD) intention and actual
behavior under the lens of extended TRA. The results of our structural equation model reveal the full mediating role of student dissatisfaction in the relationship between PAAQ on SD intention. Once the students have the intention to disengage in learning tasks, they are most likely to act on it. Perceived disengaged behavior cost is robustly proved as a key driver of SD behavior intention and actual disengagement behavior.

Keywords: academic aspect quality; student engagement; student disengagement; satisfaction;
higher education; developing countries