Measuring service quality in higher education

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to develop and empirically test a hierarchical model for measuring service quality in higher education. Design/methodology/approach – The first phase of the study consisted of qualitative research methods and a comprehensive literature review, which allowed the development of a conceptual model comprising 53 service quality attributes. Quantitative methods were used for the second phase so as to test the dimensionality of the measurement instrument and assess its validity and reliability. A sample of 207 students was surveyed, and data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha test. Findings – The results of the factor analysis revealed the presence of sub-dimensions. A hierarchical model was therefore considered most appropriate. The final model consisted of five primary dimensions, which are administrative quality, physical environment quality, core educational quality, support facilities quality and transformative quality. The instrument contained a total of 48 items. Each scale was satisfactorily tested for validity and reliability. Research limitations/implications – This empirical study made use of data collected in Mauritius only, a developing country. Practical implications – This study provides a framework and an instrument that can be used by higher education institutions in view of continuously improving educational quality. Originality/value – The study adopted a holistic approach by considering both the functional and technical aspect of service quality in higher education. Moreover, technical quality was operationalised by considering the notion of transformative quality.

UnilQual: Üniversite Yaşam Kalitesi Ölçeği

“…Accordingly, perceived quality manifested in three dimensions as perceived academic quality, perceived administrative quality and perceived physical facilities. The Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed positive results in terms of these dimensions in parallel with the results of the previous scales of HedPerf (Abdullah, 2006) and HESQUAL (Teeroovengadum et al, 2016).…”

“…In the first place, "perceived quality" was included in the scale as the most widely used criteria in the higher education quality literature (Abdullah, 2006;Ali et al, 2016;Caruana et al, 2000;Sultan &YinWong, 2014;Teeroovengadum et al, 2016). Accordingly, perceived quality manifested in three dimensions as perceived academic quality, perceived administrative quality and perceived physical facilities.…”

“…Dimension of service quality was taken from Sultan & Yin Wong (2013) and manifested in three dimensions as perceived academic quality, perceived administrative quality and perceived physical facilities. In this context, the 25 items constituting the first three dimensions were adapted from the study of Sultan & Yin Wong (2013), HedPerf (Abdullah, 2006) and HESQUAL (Teeroovengadum et al, 2016).…”

“…A more recent scale on service quality in higher education is the Higher Education Service Quality Scale (HESQUAL) developed in 2016 in order to determine the quality of the university services by creating a hierarchical model (Teeroovengadum et al, 2016). The five sets of variables were used corresponding to the higher education service quality dimensions; administrative quality, physical environment quality, core educational quality, support facilities quality and transformative quality comprising 48 items.…”

Service Quality Gap Measurement in Pharmaceutical Educational Institutes: An Empirical Analysis for Model Development

“…After reviewing literatures in relation to determinants of higher education service quality, we are interested to narrow our focus on service quality facets of the pharmaceutical education. A few researches have been carried out in this domain out of which most relevant are Holdford and Reinders (2001) who have proposed 35 …”