Measuring Service Quality of a Higher Educational Institute towards Student Satisfaction

Selim Ahmed¹ and Muhammad Mehedi Masud^2,

¹Department of Business Administration, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

²Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Cite this paper:
Selim Ahmed and Muhammad Mehedi Masud. Measuring Service Quality of a Higher Educational Institute towards Student Satisfaction. American Journal of Educational Research. 2014; 2(7):447-455. doi: 10.12691/education-2-7-3

Abstract

Service quality is increasingly recognized as an important aspect of academic programmes. This is because service quality has become a major strategy for improving competitiveness in an educational institution. This research conducted a quantitative survey on students’ perception of a higher educational institute in Malaysia namely Graduate School of Management, IIUM based on service quality performance. This paper mainly focused on critical factors of service quality of academic programmes which are offered by the Graduate School of Management, IIUM. Based on research findings and analysis, this study explored seven dimensions of service quality namely: administrative service, tangibles, academic programmes, academic staff, delivery of teaching, assurance, and empathy. In this study, authors used SPSS – 18 and AMOS -16 version to explore seven dimensions of service quality through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). These seven dimensions were tested to measure the relationships with overall students’ satisfaction of Graduate School of Management (GSM), IIUM by using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis.

Keywords:
service quality student satisfaction education management graduate school

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Zeithaml, V.A., “Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: a Means- end model and synthesis of evidence”, Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 2-22. 1988.
[2]	Bitner, M.J. and Hubbert, A.R., “Encounter satisfaction versus overall satisfaction versus quality”, London: Sage Publications, Inc. 1994.
[3]	Martinez, J.A. and Martinez, L., “Some insights on conceptualizing and measuring service quality”, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 17(1), 29-42. 2010.
[4]	Dedeke, A., “Service Quality: A fulfillment-oriented and interactions-centred approach”, Managing Service Quality, 13,(4), 276-289. 2003.
[5]	Kang, G.D., James, J. and Alexandris, K., ”Measurement of internal service quality: Application of the SERVQUAL battery to internal service quality”, Managing Service Quality, 12(5), 278-291. 2002.
[6]	Abdullah, F., “HEdPERF versus SERVPERF: The quest for ideal measuring instrument of service quality in higher education sector”, Quality Assurance in Education, 13(4), 305-328. 2005.
[7]	Abdullah, F., “Measuring service quality in higher education: three instruments compare”, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 29(1), 71-89. 2006.
[8]	Emiliani, M.L., “Using kaizen to improve graduate business school degree programs”, Quality Assurance in Education,13(1), 37-52. 2005.
[9]	Gutman, J. and Miaoulis, G., “Communicating a quality position in service delivery: An application in higher education”, Managing Service Quality, 13(2), 105-111. 2003.
[10]	Voss, R., Gruber, T. and Szmigin, I., “Service quality in higher education: The role of student expectations”, Journal of Business Research, 60(9), 949-959. 2007.
[11]	Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. and Zeithaml, V.A., “Refinement and reassessment of the SERVQUAL scale”, Journal of Retailing, 67(4), 420-450. 1991.
[12]	Gallifa , J. and Batalle, P., “Student perceptions of service quality in a multi-campus higher education system in Spain”, Quality Assurance in Education, 18(2), 156-170. 2010.
[13]	Field, A., “Discovering statistics using SPSS”, 3rd Edition: London: SAGE Publications Ltd. 2009.
[14]	Sharma, S., “Applied Multivariate Techniques”, New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1996.
[15]	Hair, J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J. and Anderson, R.E., “Multivariate data analysis: A global perspective”, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 2010.
[16]	Farrell, A.M., “Insufficient discriminant validity: A comment on Bove, Pervan, Beatty, and Shiu (2009)”, Journal of Business Research. 63(3), 324-327. 2010.
[17]	Byrne, B.M., “Structural equation modeling with AMOS: Basic concepts, application, and programming”, 2nd Edition: New York: Routledge. 2010.
[18]	Kline, R.B., “Principles and practice of structural equation modeling”, 3rd edition, New York: Guilford Press. 2011.