Using the SERVQUAL Framework to Examine the Service Quality in Higher Education in Thailand

Abstract

Customer service and quality are driving forces in the business community. As higher educational institutions struggle for competitive advantages and high service quality, the evaluation of educational service quality is essential to provide motivation for and give feedback on the effectiveness of educational plans and their implementation. Monitoring student satisfaction with education quality has become an integral part of the educational process in not only a number of universities, but also further afield. This research presents an enhanced approach to using the SERVQUAL framework for measuring student satisfaction. It involves the use of factors concerning student services that are queried and surveyed using the SERVQUAL methodology. The proposed instrument was tested at a regional university in Thailand with a sample of 400 undergraduate students. Rigorous analysis demonstrates the usefulness of the approach in gathering business students’ perceptions, analyzing them, and reducing them to a form usable by management as an off-the-shelf service quality measurement tool.