Saudi University Students’ Perceptions of Service Quality in Higher Education

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs), like any other organizations, consider the customer experience to be an intrinsic component of their strategic plans, decision-making processes, and development. In the higher education (HE) context, the students are the customers and demand high service quality to inform their decisions. This article evaluates the perception of quality of service (QoS) in a HE setting from the perspective of students studying at King Khalid University (KKU) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A modified service quality (SERVQUAL) instrument is used to measure five constructs: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The research also assesses whether there is a connection between the participants’ responses and key demographic variables. Permission was granted to distribute 500 questionnaires to all the students in the selected college. Of these, 350 questionnaires were returned, and 298 were deemed useful. The data collected to assess perceptions of QoS was analyzed using SPSS, a t-test, and a cutoff point (3.4). The table of variance analysis and ETA square identified relationships between the participants’ answers and the demographic variables. Evaluation of all the services was lower than predicted. The highest rated construct was assurance with mean (3.0116), responsiveness with mean (2.8465), tangibles with mean (2.7843), reliability with mean (2.6914), and empathy with mean (2.5558). There were statistically significant differences found in the students’ evaluation for the first dimension (tangibles) associated with gender difference, with the average evaluation by male students being (2.9532), and the average evaluation by female students (2.6685); otherwise demographic characteristics had no statistically significant influence on students’ evaluations.