Development of an instrument for measuring and analyzing client satisfaction for Navy Regional Data Automation Centers

Abstract

Client satisfaction was considered to be a critical indicator of the effectiveness of the services provided by the Navy Regional Data Automation Centers (NARDACs). The purpose of this thesis was to develop the means to measure this indicator. Interviews of twenty-eight middle management clients served by NARDACs in four geographical regions within CONUS were conducted. Forty-four items that influence satisfaction were identified belonging to eight factor dimensions of the client satisfaction domain. The Likert Scale methodology was employed in the construction of the measurement instrument. The instrument was reviewed for completeness of items and logical soundness of operations by three independent groups of experts, thus achieving content validity. A client satisfaction index is formulated from data obtained with the measurement instrument. The instrument was piloted to a NARDAC site consisting of fifty-two client organizations using self-administered mail surveys. Evaluation of the instrument was performed on the scored results of twenty-six pilot respondents. The pilot results were subjected to empirical tests for construct validity and reliability. The results indicated that the instrument could be used to measure client satisfaction after further piloting on a larger (at least two hundred twenty) sample size