Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to report on the perception of students in regard to critical antecedents, dimensions and consequences of service quality with an aim to develop a theoretical model in the context of a university in Australia.Design/methodology/approachThis research used focus group discussions with 19 students who had been studying in undergraduate and postgraduate level programs at an Australian university.FindingsThe findings show that the critical antecedents to perceived service quality are information and past experience. There are three aspects of perceived service quality, namely, academic, administrative and facilities. Student satisfaction and student trust are found to have direct and positive relationships with perceived service quality as consequences; and brand performance and behavioural intention are found to have indirect relationships with perceived service quality mediated through satisfaction and trust.Originality/valueThis paper found three separate themes and their relationships with service quality in the context of a university. These themes are: information, past experience and brand performance. Perceived service quality was found playing an important role in this theoretical model. The model provides a good explanation of university brand performance and students' behavioural intentions.
Highlights
The role of services in the world economy has increased significantly in the last decade, in the developed nations (Ueltschy, Laroche, Eggert, & Bindl, 2007)
Service quality assessment is students’ judgments of service attributes (Johnson & Winchell, 1988). It is a cognitive process, meaning that service quality assessment is a psychological result of perception, learning, reasoning and understanding of the service attributes. This definition is adapted from the Academic Service Quality (ACSQ): Academic service quality refers to those service attributes that are relevant to teaching quality and ability, course development and teacher–student relationships
The first research objective was relevant to determining the antecedents of service quality in a higher education context
Summary
This chapter is the final part of the thesis, and provides a summary of the chapters, the thesis’s contribution to knowledge, practice and methodology, its limitations and future research.
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