Assessing quality gap of university services

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine the quality gap of university services in the behavioral science faculties of the University of Tehran (Iran).

Design/methodology/approach

In the current research, 300 students of five behavioral science faculties – Psychology and Educational Science, Social Science, Economics, Physical Education and Sport Science, Management, Entrepreneurship – in the University of Tehran (Iran), were chosen randomly and completed the SERVQUAL questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of two parts regarding customer's perceptions and expectations about the quality of service. SERVQUAL questionnaire measures the five aspects of service which include assurance, responsiveness, empathy, reliability and tangibles. Therefore, the quality gap of the services of behavioral science faculties was determined according to differences between the students' perceptions and expectations. In order to analyze research data, descriptive statistics, t‐Student and ANOVA analysis were conducted.

Findings

The results demonstrated that in three of the five SERVQUAL dimensions (tangibles, reliability, and empathy), there was a negative quality gap (p<0.05). Thus, improvements are needed across three above‐mentioned dimensions. Also, there were no significant differences between perceptions and expectations of students based on their gender, degree and field of study.

Research limitations/implications

The current research was conducted among behavioral science faculties of the University of Tehran, so the results are limited to these faculties, not to the whole university.

Originality/value

There are limited researches that consider service quality in Iranian higher education. However, for the first time, the service quality of behavioral science faculties of the University of Tehran was measured by the SERVQUAL in this research.

Citation

Abili, K., Narenji Thani, F., Mokhtarian, F. and Mehdi Rashidi, M. (2011), "Assessing quality gap of university services", Asian Journal on Quality, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 167-175. https://doi.org/10.1108/15982681111158724