Defining the Perception and Experiences of Educational Service Stakeholders

Abstract

Background and Purpose: The office of educational services at universities is a very important division and it is necessary for employees to strive towards providing suitable services to students. The quality of educational services has always been a major concern for higher education managers. Interviewing stakeholders and experts increases our understanding of different aspects of the subject in order to create a native model with high performance capability based on existing conditions and the cultural and political infrastructure of our country. Therefore, we aimed to define the perception and experiences of educational service stakeholders. Methods: In this qualitative thematic content analysis that adapted a deductive approach using Graneheim and Lundman’s method. Initially, purposeful sampling was done to identify and select the students (as first level stakeholders) studying paramedical majors at one of the medical science universities of the country during the educational year 2015-2016. Altogether, 20 people were interviewed consisting of 6 students, 4 faculty members, 2 student affairs employees, 1 counselor, 2 education officers, and 2 education office managers).Data were analyzed and coded using MAXQDA software. Results: Of the 400 initial codes extracted through data analysis, 336 abstract codes, 48 sub-categories, 20 categories, and 7 themes were obtained. The level of abstraction was different in the categories. The extracted themes were as follows: information gap before and after entering university, the difference between expected and perceived services and factors contributing to expectations, the university’s approach in enhancing service quality, the student and management of educational problems, the system-student interaction in educational planning, and the professors’ responsibilities and performance in enhancing quality, and the role on the university management system in enhancing the quality of services. Conclusions: In the current educational management system, there are several gaps affective the quality of service providing such as the gap between the students’ expectations and the management system, the gap between the perceptions of the university management and the designing and standardizing of services, the gap between standardization and presentable services, communicational gaps, and gaps between received services and expected services. Therefore, in a future study, we will define these gaps and present a model that could fill those gaps. Keywords: EXPERIENCES, PERCEPTION, EDUCATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS, EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, QUALITY