Towards an Identification and Classification of Service Quality Attributes in Higher Education

Abstract

Abstract-In what has become a highly competitive environment, students have become more discriminating in their selection and more demanding of the universities they choose. It is important then for institutions to understand service quality attributes what incoming students desire (and increasingly expect) from the institution of their choice. Higher education (HE) institutions should ensure that all services encounters are managed to enhance students' perceived quality. While there is a consensus on the importance of service quality issues in HE, the identification and classification of the service quality attributes is a challenge to gain a better understanding of the quality issues of students' experiences face. The aim of this study is to identify and classify the service attributes that can promote student satisfaction. The process of identification and classification is demonstrated empirically in a case study of a well-known private university in Indonesia.

A View from the Aisle Revisited: Delight and Outrage in the Classroom

“…Voss, Gruber, and Reppel (2010) have specifically called for more research on classroom-based service encounters. While there has been some controversy as to whether education should be treated as a service with students viewed as customers (see, e.g., Bowden, 2011;Clayson & Haley, 2005;Obermiller, Fleenor, & Raven, 2005;Smith, 2013;Svensson & Wood, 2007), student satisfaction, or even delight, can create competitive advantage for the educational institution (Sukwadi, Yang, & Liu, 2011) and positively impact both student motivation (Elliott & Shin, 2002) and learning (Guolla, 1999). To our knowledge, no studies to date have recognized that when classroom encounters go well or poorly, students may not be simply satisfied or dissatisfied, but may feel the stronger emotions of delight or outrage.…”

External Quality Assurance Model in HEIs: 3-D ACS Framework

“…By including ESD as an indicator of quality measurement, universities will be more aware of implementing it. Measurement instruments for sustainable universities are also available in several papers; for example, SusServQual [25].…”