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The Cyprus Journal of Sciences
12
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The Cyprus Journal of Sciences, Vol. 4, 2006/13-23
STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES ABOUT EDUCATIONAL SERVICE QUALITY
COSTAS ZAFIROPOULOS
ABSTRACT
Assessment of education service quality is an important issue in higher education worldwide.
This paper presents students’ perceptions of education service quality as experienced at a
Higher Technological Education Institute based in Greece and measured by the SERVQUAL
questionnaire. After shortly reporting the findings produced by the use of SERVQUAL, the
paper explores the capabilities of the instrument to distinguish segments of students according
to their expressed quality scores. The findings suggest that perceived and expected quality are
closer to each other for new students, students of newly founded departments and students of
specific faculties.
Keywords: Quality of Services; Higher Education; SERVQUAL; Quality Dimensions; Students’
Segments.
1. INTRODUCTION
Quality improvement systems were initially implemented in product engineering
but soon became evident that the concept of quality also applies to services. Despite
the fact that service quality is more difficult to be measured than goods quality
instruments for measuring service quality have been developed and validated
(Parasuraman et al. 1985). Relative research gives emphasis to the executive
perceptions of service quality and the tasks associated with service delivery
(Parasuraman et al. 1985, Zeithalm et. al.1988, 1990). The search of quality has
become an important consumer trend (Parasuraman et al. 1985) and a major field of
concern in the literature of marketing.
Higher education is a service since it exhibits all the classical features of services:
it is intangible and heterogeneous, meets the criterion of inseparability by being
produced and consumed at the same time, satisfies the perishability criterion and
assumes the students’ participation in the delivery process (Cuthbert 1996a). The
concepts of service quality are therefore directly applicable to higher education.
According to Tam (2001), however, quality in higher education is a “relative
concept”, with respect to the stakeholders in higher education and the circumstances in
Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational
Institute of Serres, Greece
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which it is involved. In other words, quality means different things to different people
as well as the same person may adopt different conceptualisations at different
moments. This raises the issue of “who is the customer in education”. Hill (1995)
suggests the student as the primary consumer in higher education. Rowley (1997), on
the other hand, advises that the attempt to measure quality in general terms should
take into account all stakeholders' perspectives, which include students, parents, staff,
employers, business and legislators.
Higher education institutes are increasingly attracting more attention to service
quality mainly due to the fact that there is a social requirement for quality evaluation
in education. In many countries this requirement is expressed directly through the
establishment of independent quality assurance bodies, which place emphasis on
student experience as one of the assessment criteria. In other countries the social
requirement for improvement in education is often expressed indirectly. In Greece, for
example (where there is no national system for quality assurance) the Ministry of
National Education and Religious Affairs has granted to higher education institutions
a number of programmes in which quality evaluation is an integral part. T.E.I. of
Serres has been granted a number of curriculum reform programmes that include
quality evaluation as an indispensable activity. In the framework of these curriculum
reform programmes, the academic departments of T.E.I. of Serres have used a number
of evaluation instruments.
This paper aims:
1. to briefly present some findings of the implementation of SERVQUAL to a
Greek Higher Education Institute;
2. to explore possible score differentiations among different students segments
and distinguish the most interesting segments; and
3. to make suggestions and conclude on the use of SERVQUAL in association to
the Greek Higher Education context.
The paper introduces SERVQUAL and comments on the suitability of adapting it
to the Greek Higher Education context. Next the paper presents the research
methodology followed in order to implement the instrument in Technological
Education Institute of Serres, Greece. The paper uses descriptive statistics, correlation
coefficients and stepwise regression analyses. Also Cronbach’s alphas are calculated
to measure reliability.
Students’ Attitudes about Educational Service Quality
15
2. THE SERVQUAL INSTRUMENT
Parasuraman et al. (1985) developed the “gap model of service quality” and
proposed SERVQUAL as an instrument to measure service quality. Their research
suggested that there is a set of five gaps regarding the executive perceptions of service
quality and the tasks associated with service delivery (Parasuraman et al. 1985,
Zeithalm et. al.1988, 1990). Based on this theoretical background, SERVQUAL was
proposed as an instrument for measuring service quality. It was tested for reliability
and validity in multiple service sector settings and it was considered to be a concise
multiple-item scale with good reliability and validity.
There have been quite many attempts to apply SERVQUAL in the academic
environment, despite the fact that the language and some of its items involved embody
the philosophy of the business world (Cuthbert 1996a 1996b, 1996b, Chua 2004, Hill,
1995, Pariseau and McDaniel, 1997, Rowley, 1997, Soutar and McNeil 1996, Oldfield
and Baron 2003, Soutar and McNeil, 1996, Tan and Kek, 2004).
Among other attempts to use SERVQUAL within the education context Sherry et
al. (2004), used SERVQUAL to assess the perceptions of international students (as
opposed to local students), with intention to serve better the legitimate needs and
expectations of services offered to this group of students. They conclude that
SERVQUAL offered useful insights and is a good starting point to measure education
quality, but a more in-depth analysis of the areas of concern would be needed.
SERVQUAL offered satisfactory findings and was proved to be at least a good
starting point for this kind of educational assessment research. Darlaston-Jones et al.
(2003) and LaBay and Comm (2003) did relative research to capture differences that
may rise among students regarding teaching and administration staff or regarding
distance learning and conventional way of learning. Pariseau and McDaniel (1997)
used SERVQUAL to compare quality between two business schools by administering
the questionnaire to the students and the lectures as well. Lecturer’s attitudes
concerning quality may be different from students’. Oldfield and Baron (2003) and
Athiyaman (2000) followed some sophisticated approaches using SERVQUAL to the
universities context.
3. STUDY DESIGN
This study uses the standardized SERVQUAL instrument to record students’
attitudes towards education service quality (Zafiropoulos et al 2005a, Zafiropoulos et
al 2005b). A total of 335 questionnaires were administered to the undergraduate
students of all the departments of Technological Education Institute of Serres, Greece.
The field research took place during November 2004. Table 1 presents the sample
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profile. The sample was designed to include as many students with higher-class level
as possible. In this way it was expected that students would have had enough time
during their studies to form their perceptions regarding quality. Proportionate
sampling was used to capture the various departments’ size differences (Table 1).
Table 1 shows that the Departments of Business Administration and Accounting are
the densest, since they account for nearly one half of the students’ population.
Information and Communication Science Department and especially Topography and
Surveying Department are two newly founded departments and hence their students’
attitudes may differ from the others who attend more stabilized departments. Also
Departments of Mechanical and Civil Engineering may reflect differences in their
students’ attitudes because of differences in infrastructure, laboratories, study
practices etc.
The standardized SERVQUAL instrument was used, in which only language
adjustment was made, in order to fit in the academic environment. It is constructed
from 22 items, which form five factors namely:
x Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of staff and their ability to inspire trust
and confidence.
x Responsiveness: Willingness to help students and provide prompt service.
x Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the Institute provides its
students.
x Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and
accurately.
x Tangibles: Condition of facilities, equipment, and appearance of staff.
Each item is repeated because the students are asked to rate both the perceived
service quality originated from their home institute and the expected service quality
originated from the ideal institute the students have in mind using a five points Likert
scale. Resembling the original SERVQUAL instrument, five more questions regarding
the relative importance of SERVQUAL factors were added to the questionnaire. In
this way the total SERVQUAL score could be calculated as a weighted mean of the
SERVQUAL factors.
By subtracting perceived minus expected rating we can estimate the net
satisfaction from quality for each student for each item. SERVQUAL factors are the
means of these differences for specific questions. Total SERVQUAL score is
calculated as the weighted mean of SERVQUAL factors, taking the factors importance
evaluations as weights. Finally, we present the average values of the SERVQUAL
factors and the total SERVQUAL score (Figure 1).
Students’ Attitudes about Educational Service Quality
17
TABLE 1: SAMPLE DESCRIPTION
Frequency Percent %
Numbers of students
actually attending the
institute
Sex Male 180 53.73
Female 155 46.27
Class level Freshman 11 3.28
Sophomore 50 14.93
Junior 94 28.06
Senior 180 53.73
Department Business administration 68 20.30 2015
Accounting 83 24.78 2475
Mechanical engineering 54 16.12 1591
Civil engineering 57 17.01 1696
Information and
Communication Science 44 13.13
1304
Topography and surveying 29 8.66 870
Total 335 100.0 9951
TABLE 2: CRONBACH’S ALPHAS OF SERVQUAL DIMENSIONS
Dimensions Cronbach’s Alpha
Tangibles .70
Reliability .75
Responsiveness .70
Assurance .65
Empathy .79
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FIGURE 1: THE SERVQUAL DIMENSIONS SCORES
4. FINDINGS
Cronbach’s Alphas were used to test for reliability of the SERVQUAL factors
(Table 2). All the factors produced high alphas, in most cases exceeding 0.70, with the
exception of Assurance, which produced a value of 0.65. Hence SERVQUAL
instrument is considered to be reliable. This is not always the case in the research that
employed the SERVQUAL instrument. For example Cuthbert (1996b) calculated
Cronbach’s Alpha for his revised version of SERVQUAL to be about 0.50 or less.
Although Cronbach’s Alphas offer some support for reliability of the scales, further
analyses should be performed for testing the validity of the instrument.
Students in the study were asked to evaluate the relative significance of
SERVQUAL factors so that the total SERVQUAL score could be calculated. Students
considered Reliability, Assurance and Responsiveness to be the most significant
factors that form service quality.
Table 3 presents the mean scores for the SERVQUAL factor scores and the total
SERVQUAL score along with mean factor scores for the Expected and Perceived
-1,15 -1,1 -1,05 -1 -0,95 -0,9 -0,85
Tangibles
Reliability
Responsiveness
Assurance
Empathy
Servqual
Students’ Attitudes about Educational Service Quality
19
quality. SERVQUAL score demonstrates that Perceived Reliability, Assurance and
Empathy deviate from the relative expected values more than Tangibles and
Responsiveness do. The total SERVQUAL score exceeds one unit and so do
Assurance, Empathy and Reliability (Figure 1). It seems, therefore that these three
factors are the ones that the institute suffers more regarding service quality.
Responsiveness and Tangibles follow with somewhat lesser scores.
TABLE 3: MEAN SCORES OF SERVQUAL DIMENSIONS
Total Expected Perceived
SERVQUAL
factors
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Tangibles 3.595 .933 2.624 .829 -.969 1.154
Reliability 3.813 .869 2.765 .765 -1.055 .980
Responsiveness 3.857 .864 2.872 .780 -.994 1.001
Assurance 3.892 .845 2.760 .808 -1.131 1.040
Empathy 3.428 .959 2.346 .785 -1.093 1.135
SERVQUAL -1.093 .899
TABLE 4: THE SERVQUAL DIMENSIONS SCORES FOR SEGMENTS OF
STUDENTS
Assurance Responsiveness Empathy Reliability Tangibles Servqual
Gender
Female Mean -0.96 -0.94 -1.11 -0.99 -0.93 -1.01
SD 1.03 1.01 1.11 0.93 1.10 0.88
Male Mean -1.28 -1.05 -1.10 -1.11 -1.01 -1.17
SD 1.02 1.00 1.16 1.02 1.20 0.90
Faculty
Technology Mean -0.99 -0.80 -0.93 -0.91 -0.85 -0.96
SD 1.03 1.00 1.20 1.02 1.22 0.96
Administration Mean -1.30 -1.23 -1.29 -1.23 -1.11 -1.25
SD 1.03 0.95 1.03 0.90 1.05 0.80
Age of the department
Old Mean -1.23 -1.09 -1.19 -1.15 -1.05 -1.18
SD 1.03 0.97 1.10 0.95 1.13 0.87
New Mean -0.78 -0.66 -0.75 -0.71 -0.66 -0.78
SD 1.01 1.04 1.19 1.03 1.19 0.94
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TABLE 5: CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS BETWEEN SERVQUAL
DIMENSIONS AND DEMOGRAPHIC/EDUCATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
GenderaSemester Age of the
Departmentsb
Facultyc
Assurance -.153(**) -.121(*) .177(**) -.148(**)
Responsiveness -.056 -.089 .177(**) -.212(**)
Empathy .005 -.161(**) .157(**) -.157(**)
Reliability -.062 -.130(*) .185(**) -.166(**)
Tangibles -.035 -.112(*) .142(**) -.116(**)
SERVQUAL -.086 -.139(*) .182(**) -.163(**)
(a: 0 female, 1 male)
(b: 0 old, 1 new)
(c: 0 Administration, 1 Technology)
(**: p< 0.01, *: p< 0.05)
TABLE 6: STEPWISE REGRESSIONS OF SERVQUAL DIMENSIONS VS
DEMOGRAPHIC AND EDUCATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
B Std. Error Beta t
Assurance Constant -.833 .127 -6.546
Age of the Departmentb .280 .154 .111 1.815
Gendera -.404 .115 -.194 -3.502
Facultyc -.310 .132 -.149 -2.352
Responsiveness Constant -.645 .104 -6.188
Facultyc -.497 .112 -.247 -4.437
Gendera -.238 .112 -.118 -2.125
Empathy Constant -.930 .085 -10.922
Facultyc -.365 .125 -.160 -2.916
Reliability Constant -1.154 .060 -19.133
Age of the Departmentb .438 .130 .184 3.367
Tangibles Constant -1.058 .072 -14.744
Age of the Departmentb .384 .155 .137 2.470
SERVQUAL Constant -1.182 .056 -21.159
Age of the Departmentb .397 .122 .181 3.262
(a: 0 female, 1 male), (b: 0 old, 1 new), (c: 0 Administration, 1 Technology)
5. THE IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC AND EDUCATIONAL
CHARACTERISTICS
As mentioned before score differences may occur because of the different
departmental origin of the students. This section attempts to explore differences that
may occur because of these educational and demographic characteristics as well. Four
independent variables are used:
Students’ Attitudes about Educational Service Quality
21
a) Gender: Gender is considered to be a crucial factor regarding educational
choices of the students and it may have some impact on perceived and on expected
education quality as well.
b) Faculty: There are two faculties. Faculty of Technology and faculty of
Administration. The first is consisted of Departments of Mechanical Engineering,
Civil Engineering, Information and Communication Science, Topography and
Surveying, and the second is consisted of the Departments of Business Administration
and Accounting. Different Faculties may reflect different attitudes of the students
because they experience different class and laboratories conditions or they experience
different lecture and assistance styles.
c) Department age: TEI of Serres was initially consisted by Department of
Mechanical engineering, Civil engineering, Business Administration and Accounting.
Recently two departments were added: Information and Communication Science, and
Topography and Surveying. The new departments were very active in engaging new
staff and laboratories equipment and also constructed their curriculum from scratch,
giving emphasis in newly developed methods and knowledge. On the other hand the
more conventional and elder departments although having made severe changes to
their curricula due to an extended reforming programme that the Ministry of
Education Affaires granted to them, they may have different effect on their students’
perceptions about quality. A binary variable that distinguishes new and old
departments is added in the analysis.
d) Study semester: The semester may be a significant variable because it
distinguishes the new from the older students. New students may experience
differences in educational and administrational services of the Institute and on the
contrary to the older ones they may have a different and even more positive attitude
than the older students.
Table 4 presents the SERVQUAL scores breakdown according to faculty, age of
the department and Gender. Table 5 presents correlation coefficients between
SERVQUAL dimensions and demographic/educational characteristics. Gender has a
minor impact. It affects only Assurance since male students present lower scores and
so they are more dissatisfied than female students in terms of knowledge and courtesy
of staff and their ability to inspire trust and confidence. On the other hand educational
characteristics are more influential in forming SERVQUAL scores. Semester in a
lesser degree and the Age of the departments and Faculty in a greater degree affect
nearly all the dimensions and the overall SERVQUAL score as well. Students who are
closer to graduation are less satisfied in all the dimensions and the overall score except
Responsiveness, since the correlation coefficients are negative and statistically
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22
significant at p=0.05. Regarding the Age of the Departments and Faculty, students of
the new departments and students of Administration are more satisfied in every aspect
of the SERVQUAL scale, since the positive correlations are also statistically
significant at p=0.01. In conclusion they are the freshmen, the students of the newly
founded departments and the students of Administration Faculty who are more
satisfied regarding expected and perceived quality within the educational context and
by using SERVQUAL.
To make a further development in the previous analysis it is interesting to watch
how all the independent variables affect the SERVQUAL dimensions jointly. Multiple
linear regression models and stepwise selection of the variables are used. Table 6
presents only the independent variables which stay in the final models.
Assurance is affected by the Age of the departments, Gender and Faculty.
However regarding Betas we can see that Gender has the greatest effect size while
Faculty has the second. Gender has the greatest impact on Responsiveness followed
by Faculty. Only Faculty affects Empathy. Reliability and Tangibles as well as the
overall SERVQUAL scores are affected only by the Age of the Departments. All the
effects are in the same directions as those commented for Table 5. Overall it is
interesting to notice that the Faculty and the Age of the Departments are the two
independent variables with major presence and impact. The specific educational
institute experience differences in delivering educational services. These differences
are probably greater for the newly founded departments and are reflected to students’
attitudes. Also differences between faculties may reflect different levels of the
alteration procedures regarding the conventional ways of delivering educational
services. On the other hand, they may just reflect different ways of perception for the
students of the two faculties, the students of Administration being more tolerant. To
arrive to some conclusions on this matter qualitative research is needed to explore the
reasons for the dissatisfaction and the different levels of attitudes.
6. CONCLUSIONS
SERVQUAL is a valuable instrument to measure service quality. In particular it
seems to be of use for research within the educational context. Although its original
purpose was to measure consumers’ attitudes, previous works in the relative literature
and recent practice suggest that it could fit to the educational context since. It can be
used to explore differentiation in attitudes among students of different levels and
faculties.
The Technological Education Institute of Serres has benefited from this
exploration and managed to spot what are the segments of students that the Institute
Students’ Attitudes about Educational Service Quality
23
needs to focus on and then make an effort to alter the conditions that provoke negative
quality rankings. Further research, mainly qualitative, is needed and is already in
progress for the explanation and understanding of the students’ attitudes.
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