SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The service quality literature focusing on higher education highlights explicitly the benefits from the development and implementation of institutional specific frameworks. Based upon the literature review of 24 articles presented in this study, the main questions to be answered are addressed to be able to identify a valid direction and means of quality improvement efforts. Based upon the stated institutional goals, the consideration of the viable methodologies is of utmost importance. Most of the service quality models proposed in higher education context are based on either the SERVQUAL or the SERVPERF model. Besides the methodological issues, the operational level, namely the institutional level, program level or course level to which the service quality measurement efforts are concentrated, has to be also declared in accordance with the institutional goals. Most of the empirical research in the literature focus on the institution level, and far less models have been proposed with program or course level focus. Nevertheless, the number of studies related to lower levels are increasing emphasizing the relevance of a bottom-up approach. The difficulty of finding the right institutional answers partly arise from the high number of stakeholder groups including students, lecturers, parents, administrative staff, funding bodies, etc. with special attention to students. This paper addresses these issues in the development process of a questionnaire aiming the measurement of service quality on institution and program level.