"Assessing The Quality Of Higher Education Services Using A Modified Servqual Scale "

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to assess the service quality in high public education in Albania, using the SERVQUAL approach. Today Albanian public universities are facing fierce competition from private universities, so they find imperative focusing firmly on service quality they offer to students. The paper reports on a modified SERVQUAL survey of students from five public universities in Albania. The survey aims to capture the perceptions and expectations students have about the service they receive in respective universities, leading to an evaluation of overall perceived service quality based on gap analysis. The data analysis reveals interesting findings on students' perceptions of service quality in high education. The universities' management would benefit from these findings by knowing which gap should receive the most attention in order to gain competitive advantage. An improved service quality will also help them to face the competition from other high education institutions. The study confirms the SERVQUAL scale as a suitable tool in assessing service quality in public sector, holding the same strengths as in private sector. The continuous measurement of service quality in universities will help in engaging in a continuous improvement of this quality, creating a good basis for achieving higher objectives. Service quality measurement will also help in creating a marketorientation for public universities, focusing more on the student as a customer.

Dimensions of service quality in higher education – critical review (students’ perspective)

“…It is interesting to note that a fair portion of the selected study involves SERVQUAL as the scale (Chopra et al , 2014; Yousapronpaiboon, 2014; Cerri, 2012; Zeshan et al , 2010). Around 23 of 30 studies involved SERVQUAL scale.…”

“…Law (Legčević, 2010, Douglas et al , 2008) and engineering (Tan and Kek, 2004) are surveyed in two studies each. Six studies considered multiple disciplines (Abdullah et al , 2014; Cerri, 2012; Khodayari and Khodayari, 2011). Other than this, medical (Bahadori et al , 2012), physical education (Yazdi et al , 2013) and information technology (Smith et al , 2007) are also discussed.…”

“…Although a few parts, such as course and books notes, can be covered in the tangible parts, it does not include the whole education process. Also, it is difficult to measure them precisely (Cerri, 2012) and demarcation can be created by providing unique experience (Ford et al , 1999; Khodayari and Khodayari, 2011).…”

“…It is diverse in terms of service offerings such as lecture delivering, pre/post-class contents, for example, notes, handouts, planning assessments and exercises for practice or for lab or workshop, evaluation process, guiding and then there is the whole variety of an orientation of courses like graduation, postgraduation, professional, vocational, research and development, entrepreneurial (Cerri, 2012).…”

“…The need of the one cannot be fulfilled without the presence of another. There is minimal interference from students as the delivery, of course, is done by experts (Cerri, 2012).…”