Service Quality and Student Satisfaction in Higher Education

Education is a significant institution given the shift to a knowledge economy. Today students have numerous expectations that range from choosing what to learn, how to learn and how much to learn based on their individual academic needs. Student satisfaction is an important facet for higher education institutions and specifically, it is highly related to service quality. Thus, the main goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between student perceived service quality and the global satisfaction level among university students. The ServQual instrument was administered to a sample of 250 university students. The results indicated that the higher gap of the service quality is related to the responsiveness dimension, followed by the reliability, assurance, empathy and tangibles dimensions. At the same time, there was a significant positive relationship between student satisfaction and responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy, but negative correlation between student satisfaction and tangibles. The findings generally indicate that a majority of students are satisfied with the facilities provided by the university. Such findings should help the university make a better strategic plan as to enhance student satisfaction in particular and its overall performance in general. So, the service quality in higher education has a significant influence on student satisfaction and in view of this, higher education institutions need to be aware of the service quality dimensions that influence the satisfaction of their students and therefore that it is important to note that these dimensions should be determined by the students, because the students are the primary recipients of the services provided by the institution. [For the complete Volume 22 proceedings, see ED656158.]