Interplay of Quality Indicators, School Image and Students’ Loyalty of a Private College with Forthcoming Accreditation

The effect of quality indicators (instructor quality, administration quality, physical environment quality, social environment quality and curriculum quality) on school image and students' loyalty are examined in this paper in a path model. Questionnaires measuring these constructs were administered to a stratified random sample of 361 Filipino college students of a private higher education institution during its preparation phase for a Level III accreditation. Path analysis using AMOS 8.0 was used to determine the direct effects of quality indicators on school image and student loyalty, and in turn, the effect of school image on student loyalty. The path model tested showed adequate goodness of fit (χ^2/df=2.341, GFI=0.991, TLI=0.969, CFI=0.994, RMSEA=0.077, PCLOSE=0.167). It was found out that instructor quality, physical environment quality and social environment quality have significant direct effects on student image. Curriculum quality both significantly increases both school image and student loyalty. Administration quality does not significantly provide increment on school image and student loyalty. Further analysis revealed that image fully mediates the direct effects of instructor quality, physical environment quality and social environment quality, but partially mediates that of curriculum quality on student loyalty