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Managing service quality in higher education: the role of the student as primary consumer

Frances M. Hill

Introduction
The rst part of this article discusses aspects of current service quality theory in the context of British higher education (HE). In particular, it focuses on the role of the student as primary consumer of HE services, and the implications of this conceptualization for the management of service quality in higher education organizations (HEOs). The second part briey discusses an exploratory study which has monitored a group of students expectations and perceptions of service quality over time, and the specic issues raised by the ndings.

Denition and characteristics of services


The author Frances M. Hill is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Finance of Information, The Queens University, Belfast, UK. Abstract Discusses aspects of current service quality theory in the context of British higher education (HE). Focuses on the role of the student as primary consumer of HE services (a relatively recent conceptualization in this country), and the implications of this for the management of service quality in higher education organizations (HEOs). Briey discusses an exploratory study which has monitored a group of students expectations and perceptions of service quality over time. Because of its limited scope, the ndings of this study may not be generalized to the student population as a whole. However, it does serve to highlight the need for HEOs to gather information on students expectations, not only during their time at university, but at the point of arrival and before, to manage students expectations from enrolment through to graduation, in order to align them as closely as possible with what can be delivered by way of service quality, for the student evaluation process, or upward appraisal, to be dealt with in a much more detailed, comprehensive and multi-focused way than tends to be the case currently at many British universities. Acknowledges the need for further research to investigate all of these matters.

Services are behavioural rather than physical entities, and have been described as deeds, performances or effort (Rathmell, 1966); deeds, acts or performances (Berry, 1980); activities or processes (Grnroos, 1991). As Parasuraman (1986) notes, there is fairly widespread agreement in the literature concerning the characteristics which tend to differentiate services from goods. These are: intangibility, perishability, inseparability of production and consumption, and heterogeneity. With regard to intangibility, this has been described as one of the few fairly stable generalizations that can be made about services. Liechty and Churchill (1979) state that services are doubly intangible because they are impalpable and cannot be grasped mentally. The abstract nature of services causes problems for both providers and consumers. It is difcult for service providers to differentiate their offerings from those of competitors, while it is equally difcult for consumers to evaluate a service before it is acquired and consumed. Unlike physical goods, services are ephemeral, to the extent that they can be consumed only as long as the activity or process continues. When the activity or process discontinues, de facto the service ceases to exist. Thus, service processes (although not their tangible outputs) are perishable and cannot be stored in the way that physical goods can. Moreover, their utility is short-lived and mass production, which may be possible with certain goods, is impossible in relation to services. Services are also consumed
The author wishes to thank Christopher Burns and Shirley-Ann Hazlett for their assistance in conducting this study, and also two anonymous referees who clearly put a considerable amount of effort into the task.

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 pp. 1021 MCB University Press ISSN 0968-4883

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Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

at the same time as they are produced, but there is no transfer of ownership. However, the consumer is an integral part of the service process. Because of the human interaction and labour intensity involved in the delivery of most services, they are heterogeneous, as each service act is unique. This leads to a lack of standardization, which means that service quality can vary considerably from one situation to the next within the same organization (Berry et al., 1985). Clearly these characteristics have important implications for the delivery of service quality and for HEOs, which are largely in the business of service provision.

Service quality
The will-o-the-wisp nature of service quality is nicely captured by Tan (1986, p. 224), who describes it as being like beauty in the eye of the beholder; in other words, it has different meaning for different people. Similarly, Berry et al. (1990) see consumers as being the sole judge of service quality. In terms of how consumers actually assess service quality, Berry et al. (1985, p. 46) conclude that consumer perceptions of service quality result from comparing expectations prior to receiving the service, and their actual experience of the service. Not surprisingly, if the consumers expectations are met, service quality is perceived to be satisfactory; if they are not met, it is perceived to be less than satisfactory; and if they are exceeded, it is perceived to be more than satisfactory (delighting the customer). A similar approach is taken by Grnroos (1982). This has developed into the perceptions minus expectations (PE) conceptualization of service quality referred to as gap theory. This suggests that the difference between consumers expectations about the performance of a general class of service providers and their assessment of the actual performance of a specic rm within that class drives the perception of service quality (Cronin and Taylor, 1992). To complicate matters further, service quality can be broken down into two subcomponents, namely technical quality and functional quality. Technical quality relates to what is provided during the service process (knowledge, tangibles, technical solutions, etc.). Functional quality, on the other hand, refers to how the service is provided, the interpersonal behaviours contributed by the service employee during the service encounter (Grnroos, 1982). Recognizing the role of the consumer in the service delivery process, Kelley et al.(1990) add two further components to this service quality framework customer technical quality and customer functional quality. The former refers to what the consumer contributes to the service encounter, while the latter refers to how the consumer behaves during service provision friendly, respectful, co-operative behaviours would be relevant in this regard, as would aggressive, abusive, disrespectful ones. The signicance of the above discussion on service and service quality is that, in attempting to manage service quality, it is not enough to focus on service provider 11

Role of the consumer in service delivery


One distinctive aspect of services is that consumers are often part of the production and delivery processes. In many services, the consumer is required to contribute information and/or effort before the service transaction takes place (Kelley et al., 1990). The consumers input constitutes the raw material that is transformed by the service organizations employees into a service product. Consequently, the consumer contributes directly to the quality of service delivered, and to his/her own (dis)satisfaction (Mills et al., 1983, p. 302). If the inputs provided by the consumer are inadequate and/or inappropriate, this may well lead to service problems and failures. In the world of higher education, illustrative examples might include: students failing to do the necessary advance preparation for tutorials and to ask appropriate questions at tutorials; omitting to hand in work for assessment; talking excessively during lectures, and so on. Thus, service productivity and quality depend not only on the performance of the service providers personnel, but also on the performance of the consumer, which again can make quality management problematic. In addition, many service encounters require close personal interaction between a service provider and a consumer. Whether or not such interaction is perceived by the consumer to be satisfactory may depend on a variety of factors, ranging from the appearance of the service provider (be they academic or support staff) and his/her perceived competence, to the personality characteristics of, and the interpersonal attraction between, the participants. Although some of these factors may contribute to service heterogeneity and variability, they are not easy to control.

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

personnel; attention must also be paid to the motivation and behaviour of the consumer as well. Before entering into a detailed discussion on the management of service quality in HE, it is rst of all necessary to isolate the key variables which relate to service quality. There is considerable debate in the literature (see, for example, Cronin and Taylor (1992, 1994), Teas (1993, 1994), and Parasuraman et al. (1994)), about how best to conceptualize and operationalize the service quality construct, and about the relationship between, and relative importance of, the key variables that relate to it. However, Bitners (1990) model of service encounter evaluation highlights the variables which have received most attention from researchers. Figure 1 represents a simplied version of Bitners model. For the purposes of this article, the variables of interest are: expectations, perceived service performance, disconrmation, and the relationship between consumer satisfaction and perceived service quality.

Expectations
For those wishing to manage service quality, it is most important to have some understanding of consumer expectations, how such expectations develop, and their signicance in relation to service quality. Knowing what customers expect is the rst, and possibly most critical, step in delivering service quality (Zeithaml et al., 1990, p. 51). Again, there is some debate in the literature concerning the exact nature of the expectations construct in this context. As Teas (1994, p. 135) points out, expectations have been variously dened as desires, wants, normative expectations, ideal standards, what the

service provider should offer, and a pair of normative standards comprising what the consumer hopes to receive, and adequate service. While this debate continues, it is generally agreed that most consumers enter a service encounter with some form of expectations, ranging from the ill-dened in unfamiliar situations to the well-dened in familiar ones. As indicated above, whether or not these expectations are met will have a bearing on perceived service quality. In attempting to explain how such expectations are formed, some writers (for example, McCallum and Harrison (1985), Smith and Houston (1986)), refer to the literature on cognitive scripts. This type of script has been described as a predetermined stereotyped sequence of actions that denes a well known situation (Schank and Abelson, 1977). Thus, a cognitive script will specify the set of actions which constitute a particular situation, the order in which they would normally occur, the individuals who would perform the actions, and the setting in which they take place. Thus, through repeated consumption of a service, the consumer may develop a script for that service, which will shape his/her expectations. Once formed, these expectations will be the basis of evaluation for subsequent service transactions. Zeithaml et al. (1990) identify some specic factors which can inuence the consumers expectations. These are: word of mouth communications (what consumers hear from other consumers); personal needs (determined by individual characteristics and circumstances); past experience of the service (or a related service); external communications from the service provider (for example, printed advertise-

Figure 1 A simplied version of Bitners model of service encounter evaluation


Perceived service performance

Disconfirmation

Attributions

Service encounter satisfaction

Perceived service quality

Service expectations

Source: Bitner (1990)

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Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

ments, TV commercials, brochures, and oral promises from service provider employees); price.

Perceived service performance


Zeithaml et al. (1990) also identify some factors which can inuence the consumers perception of service performance. These include tangibles, such as the food eaten in a restaurant, the physical surroundings in which the service transaction takes place, the equipment involved, and so on; the perceived competence and credibility of service providers, and their responsiveness, reliability and courtesy. These writers offer the following advice to service providers based on their own research ndings: appear neat and organised, be responsive, be reassuring, be empathetic, and most of all, be reliable do what you say you are going to do (Zeithaml et al., 1990, p. 27).

lence or superiority. Thus perceived service quality could be the product of the evaluations of a number of service encounters. In the case of a student, these could range from encounters with ofce staff, to encounters with tutors, lecturers, the heads of department, etc.

Managing service quality in higher education via the student


One of the problems facing HEOs seeking to improve service quality is that, as yet, a body of meaningful performance measures does not exist. However, since students are now being viewed as the primary customers of the HE service in the UK, one approach to service quality management which to some extent circumvents the performance measure difculty, would be attempting to align, as closely as possible, students expectations with their perceptions of service performance. It has already been demonstrated that service expectations play a key role regarding the quality perceptions which consumers ultimately develop. It follows then, that organizations should take appropriate steps to manage such expectations. As a minimum, this involves informing consumers of what is, and what is not possible, and outlining the reasons why (Berry et al., 1985; King, 1985; Zeithaml et al., 1990). For example, as Habeshaw et al. (1992) point out, for many HEOs in the UK luxuries such as fully-individualized written feedback on students assignments, one-to-one attention at tutorials, etc. are now things of the past, due to pressure on resources. Alternative arrangements employed, such as peer assessment, small-group working and so on, should be fully explained to students at the beginning of their course of study, in an attempt to ensure that their expectations of academic service encounters are realistic. As discussed earlier, some of the factors which can inuence consumer expectations and which are relevant in the context of higher education, include: word-of-mouth communications, personal needs of consumers, past experience of the service (or a related service), and external communications from the service provider. Thus it might be politic to make greater use of existing students (current consumers) on occasions such as school visits and university open days, when there are opportunities to shape the expectations of prospective undergraduates and make them as realistic as possible. In addition, greater efforts should be 13

Disconrmation, consumer (dis)satisfaction and perceived service quality


As already discussed, an important variable with regard to perceived service quality is disconrmation, i.e. the disparity between a consumers expectations and perceived service performance (see Figure 1), referred to as disconrmation. However, as Teas (1993) highlights, there is some degree of confusion in the literature as to whether the disconrmed expectations variable is a predictor of perceived service quality or whether it is a predictor of consumer (dis)satisfaction. In other words, whether its relationship to perceived service quality is direct (as in the P-E conceptualization of service quality) or indirect, as suggested by Bitner (1990) in Figure 1. The confusion mentioned earlier to some extent results from an unresolved issue in the literature concerning the nature of the relationship between service quality, and consumer satisfaction. Cronin and Taylor (1992), for example, take the view that perceived service quality leads to consumer satisfaction, while others such as Parasuraman et al. (1988) have concluded that consumer satisfaction leads to perceived service quality. One attempt at resolving this issue is made by Bitner (1990). She suggests that the consumers satisfaction assessments relate to specic service transactions, while service quality is a general attitude relating to the service providers overall excel-

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

made to gather information about the needs of students across their time at college or university, as these may not always be apparent to service providers. Furthermore, such needs may well change in nature over time, in line with certain changes in the external environment for example, Government policy on funding, grants, etc. With regard to previous experience as a factor inuencing consumer expectations, Zeithaml et al. (1990) note that this includes not only experience of a particular service provider, but also of competitive service providers, and experience of other types of service. This clearly has relevance for higher education. In relation to some undergraduate students, it seems reasonable to suppose that their expectations of HE are informed by their experiences at school. This may lead to a mismatch between expectations and perceived service performance/perceived service quality. By way of illustration, in an area such as Northern Ireland, where many young people attend relatively small rural schools, experience of close relationships with teachers may lead to expectations of similar relationships with academic staff at college or university. The expectations of postgraduate students on the other hand, may be informed by their experiences at other HEOs, which may or may not lead to such a mismatch. External communications in this context include university or college prospectuses, faculty brochures, departmental information leaets and so on. The aim here must be to put the best possible gloss on services provided for reasons of competitiveness, but without making false claims that everything in the garden is rosy. One trick employed by commercial organizations is to acknowledge problems facing a sector as a whole in the case of HE, say, increasing class size but outline the steps that a particular organization is taking to overcome such problems, and which differentiate it from competitors. Some other antecedents which the research of Parasuraman et al. (1994) suggests can serve to lower consumer expectations, thereby making them more realistic, include these: perceived service alternatives (consumers perception of the possibility of obtaining better service from other service providers); self-perceived service role (consumers perceptions of the extent to which they themselves inuence the level of service they receive, discussed further below); situational factors (performance contingen14

cies that customers perceive to be beyond the service providers control).

Perceived service performance


In adopting this approach to managing service quality, the other major issue which has to be addressed is perceived service performance (to be differentiated from perceived service quality). The factors which can inuence the consumers perception of service performance already alluded to have obvious implications for personnel employed in HEOs generally, and for academic staff in particular. For instance, lecturers who appear clean, neat and well organized are more likely to be perceived as competent and in control than those who do not. The personal interactions between academics and students are also crucial in regard to perceived service performance. It appears that a key factor which inuences consumers perceptions of service performance in general is reliability. McElwee and Redman (1993) state that in the HE context, reliability involves consistency of performance and dependability. Specicallyperforming the service at the designated time, i.e. turning up for classes, etc. and keeping accurate records of student performance (p. 28). Tutors and lecturers who fail to turn up to classes without good reason, or who persistently arrive late, are unlikely to project an image in keeping with service quality. Moreover, effort expended on preparation of lecture/tutorial material actually delivered, could well be devalued by such behaviours. At the one-to-one level, it is most important that students are dealt with sensitively and sympathetically, and that necessary assistance is provided where possible. Even in situations where a member of academic staff can do little to help a student directly, the simple act of listening is often appreciated. It has to be admitted, however, that with growing student numbers it is becoming increasingly difcult for academic staff to provide this kind of pastoral care, a fact which may well have negative implications for perceived service performance. One distinctive aspect of services already mentioned is that consumers are often part of the production and delivery processes. Thus the quality of the service provided will be inuenced by the consumers input. Because of this, Kelley et al. (1990) recommend that organizations conceptualize consumers as organizational members or partial employees, and

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

attempt to inuence their behaviour through the process of organizational socialization. The term partial employee refers to a conceptualization of consumers as temporary participants in organizations, which must develop mechanisms to ensure that consumers behave appropriately within the service operations (Mills, 1986, p. 139). Organizational socialization has been dened by Ward (1974, p. 2) as processes by which individuals acquire skills, knowledge and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace. Through organisational socialisation it is possible for service customers to gain an appreciation of specic organisational values, develop the abilities necessary to function within a specic organization, gain an understanding of what the organisation expects of them, and gain the knowledge necessary to interact with employees and other customers Kelley et al. (1990, p. 318). Thus, an essential element of the socialization process is clarifying the role of consumers. Mills (1986) identies two fundamental types of role behaviours which are consistent with the nature of service encounters. These are pivotal behaviours and peripheral behaviours. The former are those considered by the organization to be so vital that if the consumer fails to engage in them, he/she would not be considered a minimally adequate performer for example, students failing to do the necessary advance preparation for examinations. The latter are behaviours which the organization considers desirable but not absolutely essential (students being polite to academic staff perhaps?). It should be noted that the Department for Educations Charter for Higher Education (1993) refers to learner agreements (p. 13) which set out the responsibilities of both HEOs and students. Regarding the specic methods available to service organizations attempting to socialize their consumers as partial employees, it is proposed in the literature that these include: formal socialization programmes, the production of appropriate informative material, the provision of environmental cues, reinforcement, and observation of other consumers. In the context of HE, this might translate into such steps as: the provision of formal and detailed induction programmes for new undergraduates; the preparation and distribution of handouts outlining the kinds of behaviours they will be required to perform in order to gain optimum benets from the various aspects of the HE service (some colleges and universities 15

offer a curriculum module for rst-year students aimed at providing them with the skills and attitudes necessary for effective undergraduate study); the posting of appropriately placed, and clearly visible, notices concerning such matters as where assigned work can be collected, where completed assignments should be left for marking, and so on. According to Kelley et al. (1990), service consumers who have achieved a high level of organizational socialization should have more accurate expectations regarding the service transaction than might otherwise have been the case. In addition, these expectations should be more closely aligned with consumers perceptions of the quality of actual service delivery.

Managing service quality in higher education an exploratory study


For any organization, attempting to improve quality performance signicantly is a major undertaking. This is probably particularly true of British HEOs, where those responsible for such matters have, until recently, had quite a different set of preoccupations from their peers in industry and commerce. The problem is compounded by the fact that the task of developing meaningful performance measures in HE is far from complete, and also because service quality is a multifaceted construct but as yet, there is no clear consensus in the literature on the number of facets and their interrelationships (Parasuraman et al., 1994). However, there do appear to be some issues which are fundamental to the management of service quality. These include the centrality of the role of the consumer, and the relationship between the consumers expectations and his/her perceptions of service provided. In British higher education students must now be considered primary customers (Crawford, 1991), so one possible approach to managing service quality is to focus on the alignment of students expectations with their perceptions of service provided. However, in relation to students specically, there are a number of potential problems with this approach. These include: Undergraduates expectations regarding the quality of HE services have no comparative base or framework of reference from which to make evaluations (McElwee and Redman, 1993, p. 30). Thus, their expectations of HE may be informed by their prior educational experiences at school, etc. Such expectations may be quite unrealistic, and, as suggested

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

by Zeithaml et al. (1990), have a negative inuence on perceived service performance. If such were the case, student expectations would require careful management by HEOs. Younger undergraduates undergo a transition from schoolchildren to adults while at college/university, and both younger and more mature students may become increasingly discerning over time. For these reasons, their perceptions of service provided are likely to change during the course of their studies, and such change may not necessarily relate to actual changes in service quality. To gain some insight into these matters, the author has undertaken an exploratory study. To date, this has tracked the expectations and perceptions of a cohort of accounting undergraduates at a provincial British university, from enrolment through to their nal year of study. Some of the interim results of this study are reported next.

factors which the researcher considered would be experienced by the exploratory group during its time at the university in question. The full range of factors, both academic and non-academic, are listed in Tables I, II and III. As can be seen, because of its importance, teaching has been divided into the following sub-factors: course content; quality of teaching (delivery of course material); teaching methods employed; personal contact with academic staff for discussion of questions and/or problems; and feedback on academic performance and progress. Data collection and analysis During the rst lecture of each year of study, the exploratory group were requested to indicate, on a self-complete questionnaire, how important they consider each of the service factors to be in determining the quality of the overall higher education service they are receiving at the university. They do this by ranking each factor from 1 to 5 on a Likerttype scale, 1 denoting totally unimportant and 5 denoting very important. Perceived importance was used as a crude indicator of expectations. The rationale for this was as follows. First, it was considered that undergraduates would have difculty articulating their expectations if asked to do so directly. Second, if students perceive a particular factor as being important in relation to the quality of the overall HE service they are receiving, it seems reasonable to suppose they would expect that the quality of the factor itself should be good. Since the beginning of their second year of study the exploratory group have also been asked to evaluate the same factors, based on their experiences to date. Students do this using a second Likert-type scale, on which 1 denotes very poor, while 5 denotes very good. So far the group have been surveyed three times at the beginning of their rst, second and third years of study. Essentially the study has aimed to test for the following: statistically signicant between-year differences in expectations; statistically signicant between-year differences in evaluations. The statistical test employed was the Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed Ranks Test. Also, since one school of thought in the service quality literature denes quality as: the degree and direction of discrepancy between consumers perceptions and expectations 16

Methodology
Subjects The original exploratory group comprised 62 accounting undergraduates. Two of the main reasons for targeting this group were: (1) Their relative homogeneity in terms of academic attainment (minimum entry for the course is two A grades and one B grade at A-level or equivalent), and vocational aspirations (desire to be professional accountants of some description). It was considered that the expectations of this group were likely to be fairly homogeneous as well. (2) Nature of course (vocationally oriented and subject to quality assessment by external professional accrediting bodies, which, for the purposes of this study, provided some indication of consistency of academic quality over time). Service factors Higher education organizations do not merely provide academic services. Indeed, here in the UK in recent times, some of the other services provided, such as nancial services and accommodation, have become crucial to successful course completion for many students. Accordingly, the study has not focused solely on teaching, but on a range of service

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

Table I Perceived importance of each service factor between-year comparisons (differences signicant at the p 0.05 level)

Service factors Teaching Course content Teaching quality Teaching methods Personal contact with academic staff Feedback Student involvement Joint consultation Work experience (placements)a Computing facilities Library service University bookshop Careers service Counselling/welfare Financial service Health service Accommodation service Students Union Catering service Physical education Travel agency

Year 2/Year 1 n = 56

Year 3/Year 2 n = 55

Year 3/Year 1 n = 55

+ + +

+ + +

Note: a It should be noted that at no time during the students course of study were formal work placements arranged for them by the university. + = A service factor was rated more important in the subsequent year than it had been in the earlier comparator year (differences signicant at the p 0.05 level). = A service factor was rated less important in the subsequent year than it had been in the previous comparator year (differences signicant at the p 0.05 level). To illustrate, in year 2 the service factor personal contact with academic staff was perceived to be less important than it had been by the same students in year 1, and the difference in the importance ratings between the two years was signicant at the p 0.05 level.
(Parasuraman et al., 1988), it was considered appropriate to try to test for such discrepancy (the PE gap) in this study. Accordingly, a number of comparisons were carried out between the perceived importance data (expectations) and the evaluation (perceived quality experienced) data, again testing for signicant differences using the Wilcoxon Test (see Table III). academic staff, and computing facilities, both of which were perceived as being less important at the beginning of year two than they had been by the same students at the beginning of year one; and nancial services which were perceived as being more important. Year three and year two In this case, as Table I shows, signicant differences at the p 0.05 level were identied regarding the following: feedback on academic performance, work experience (placements), the universitys careers and counselling/welfare services in all instances these factors were perceived to be more important at the beginning of year three than they had been by the same students at the beginning of year two. 17

Between-year differences in perceived importance (expectations)


As can be seen from Table I, when the data collected at the beginning of year two were compared with those collected at the beginning of year one, signicant differences at the p 0.05 level were identied in relation to the following factors: personal contact with

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

Table II Evaluation of each service factor between-year comparisons, year three and year two (differences signicant at the p 0.05 level)

Between-year differences in evaluations (perceived quality experienced)


At this point in time, the only data available relating to students evaluations of the service factors are those collected at the beginning of years two and three. As Table II shows, when the Wilcoxon Test was performed on these data, signicant differences at the p 0.05 level were identied with regard to the following factors: course content, teaching quality, teaching methods, computing facilities, library service, university health service, university catering service, the careers service, and the university counselling/welfare service. In all cases, except for the last two (careers and counselling/welfare), students appeared to perceive a reduction in quality experienced over the period in question. There are several possible explanations for these ndings. For example, there may have been a real, as opposed to a perceived, change in the quality of the factors in question. Given the growth in student numbers since this study was initiated, it could well be that in respect of service factors like the libraries, computing, catering and student health, increased pressure on available resources has produced a diminution in service quality from the students point of view, despite the efforts of hard-pressed staff. However, regarding the academic service factors (course content, teaching quality (delivery of course material), teaching methods), it is less likely that there was a real negative change in service quality, as the course is subject to external quality assessment by various professional accounting bodies. Furthermore, pressure of student numbers is a less signicant inuence in this case, as many of the modules which comprise the accounting degree course are restricted to accounting and related students only. A second possible explanation for all or some of the ndings in Table II may be that the students became more discriminating or demanding over time. It is salutary to note in this context that, since more and more British students are having to make greater personal nancial investments in their college/university education (via part-time jobs, student loans, etc.), they are likely to become increasingly demanding primary consumers of the higher education service as time goes by. A third possible explanation for the ndings in Table II is that they emanate from unrealistic and/or mismanaged expectations. 18

Service factors Teaching Course content Teaching quality (delivery of course material) Teaching methods Personal contact with academic staff Feedback Student involvement in curriculum review/development Joint consultation Work experience (placements) Computing facilities Library service University bookshop Careers service Counselling/welfare Financial service Health service Accommodation service Students Union Catering service Physical education centre Travel agency

Evaluations Year 3/Year 2

+ +

Year three and year one It can be seen from Table I that analysis of the data with a two-year interval, revealed signicant differences at the p 0.05 level in relation to: the universitys careers, counselling/welfare, and nancial services, all of which were perceived to be more important at the beginning of year three than they had been by the same students at the beginning of year one; and computing facilities, which were perceived to be less important. The ndings revealed in Table I suggest that students expectations of the various HE service factors included in the study do appear to have been fairly stable over time. This is particularly true of the academic aspects of the HE service such as course content, teaching quality, teaching methods, and student involvement in curriculum review/development. It is also interesting to note that service factors such as the universitys careers, counselling/welfare, and nancial services acquired increasing perceived signicance over the period in question signs of the times no doubt!

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

Table III Perceived importance compared with evaluation between-year comparisons differences signicant at the p 0.05 level)

Service factors Teaching Course content Teaching quality Teaching methods Personal contact with academic staff Feedback Student involvement Joint consultation Work experience (placements) Computing facilities Library service University bookshop Careers service Counselling/welfare Financial service Health service Accommodation service Students Union Catering service Physical education Travel agency

Evaluation Yr2/ importance Yr1

Evaluation Yr3/ importance Yr2

Evaluation Yr3/ importance Yr1 + + +

+ +

+ +

Note: + = A service factors evaluation rating was higher in the subsequent year than its perceived importance rating had been in the earlier comparator year (differences signicant at the p 0.05 level). = A service factors evaluation rating was lower in the subsequent year than its perceived importance rating had been in the earlier comparator year (differences signicant at the p 0.05 level). To illustrate, the evaluation rating for the service factor course content was lower at the beginning of year 2 than its perceived importance rating had been at the beginning of year 1.

Service quality: the PE gap


With regard to discrepancies between expectations and perceived quality experienced, in this case between-year comparisons were only made when students had actually made use of particular service factors, so n varies for each service factor. Expectations beginning year one, evaluations beginning year two As Table III shows, when these two sets of data were compared, signicant differences were detected at the p 0.05 level regarding the following factors: course content, teaching quality, teaching methods, personal contact with academic staff, regular feedback, student involvement in curriculum review/development, joint consultation, work experience (placements), university careers service, university health service, university catering 19

service, university physical education centre. In all cases except the last three (health service, catering service, physical education centre) students perceived experiences of the factors fell short of their expectations.

Expectations beginning year two, evaluations beginning year three In this instance, as can be seen from Table III, signicant differences were detected at the p 0.05 level in relation to: course content, teaching quality, teaching methods, personal contact with academic staff, feedback, student involvement in curriculum review/development, work experience (placements), library facilities, university catering service, university careers service, university counselling/welfare service, university physical education centre. Again, in all cases except the last three (careers, counselling/welfare, physical education)

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

students perceived experiences fell short of their expectations. Expectations beginning year one, evaluations beginning year three Analysis of these data revealed differences signicant at the p 0.05 level concerning the following service factors (refer to Table III): course content, teaching quality, teaching methods, personal contact with academic staff, feedback, student involvement in curriculum review/development, work experience (placements), computing facilities, library service, university careers service, the university counselling/welfare service, the university health service, the university physical education service. In this case, with the exception of the universitys careers, counselling/welfare, health, and physical education services, students perceived experiences of the factors did not match up to expectations. There appears to be a signicant mismatch between students expectations and the perceived quality they have experienced concerning many of the service factors, up to the beginning of their nal year of study. This mismatch is most disturbing with regard to the academic service factors such as course content, teaching quality, teaching methods, personal contact with academic staff, feedback, and student involvement in curriculum review/development. On the other hand, it is interesting that service factors such as careers, counselling/welfare, health and physical education appear to have exceeded students expectations.

a maturation process, familiarity breeding contempt, inappropriate expectations, etc. Thus the study highlights the following issues: the need for HEOs to gather information on students expectations not only during their time at university, but at the point of arrival and, if possible, beforehand; the need to manage students expectations from enrolment through to graduation, in order to align them as closely as possible with what can be delivered by way of service quality; the need for the student evaluation process, or upward appraisal, to be dealt with in a much more detailed, comprehensive and multi-focused way than tends to be the case currently at many British universities. Clearly, more wide-ranging research is required to investigate all of these areas further.

References
Berry, L.L. (1980), Services marketing is different, Business Week, May-June, pp. 24-9. Berry, L.L., Zeithaml, V.A. and Parasuraman, A. (1985), Quality counts in services too, Business Horizons, May-June, pp. 44-52. Berry, L.L., Zeithaml, V.A. and Parasuraman, A. (1990), Five imperatives for improving service quality, Sloan Management Review, Summer, pp. 29-38. Bitner, M.J. (1990), Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical surroundings and employee responses, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, April, pp. 69-82. Crawford, F. (1991), Total Quality Management, Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals Occasional Paper, London, December. Cronin, J.J. and Taylor, S.A. (1992), Measuring service quality: a re-examination and extension, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56, July, pp. 55-68. Cronin, J.J. and Taylor, S.A. (1994), SERVPERF versus SERVQUAL: reconciling performance-based and perceptions-minus-expectations measurement of service quality, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58, January, pp. 125-31. Department for Education (1993), The Charter for Higher Education, HMSO, London. Grnroos, C. (1982), A service quality model and its marketing implications, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 36-44. Grnroos, C. (1991), Strategic Management and Marketing in the Service Sector, Chartwell-Bratt, Sweden. Habeshaw, S., Gibbs, G. and Habeshaw, T. (1992), Problems with Large Classes: Making the Best of a Bad Job, BPCC Wheatons, Exeter. Kelley, S.W., Donnelly, J.H. and Skinner, S.J. (1990), Customer participation in service production and delivery, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 66 No. 3, pp. 315-35.

Conclusions
The ndings of this exploratory study do seem to lend some credence to the authors suspicions. The stability of students expectations over time (especially in relation to the academic service factors) suggests that they were probably formed prior to arrival at university. It should be remembered that the exploratory group was initially surveyed at the beginning of its rst year of study. In addition, students perceptions of service experienced proved less stable over time. Exploration of the reasons for this instability was outside the scope of the study. However, there is some evidence to suggest that, because of external accreditation of the academic factors, such instability may not necessarily be the result of actual changes in service quality. It may have been the result of 20

Managing service quality in higher education

Quality Assurance in Education Volume 3 Number 3 1995 1021

Frances M. Hill

King, C.A. (1985), Service quality is different, Quality Progress, June, pp. 14-18. Liechty, M.G. and Churchill, G.A. (1979), Conceptual insights into consumer satisfaction with services, in Beckwith, N. et al. (Eds), Educators Proceedings, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 509-15. McCallum, J.R. and Harrison, W. (1985), Interdependence in the service encounter, in Czepiel, J.A., Solomon, M.R. and Surprenant, C.F. (Eds), Managing Employee/ Customer Interaction in Service Business, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA. McElwee, G. and Redman, T. (1993), Upward appraisal in practice, Education + Training, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 27-31. Mills, P.K. (1986), Managing Service Industries: Organisational Practices in a Postindustrial Economy, Ballinger, Cambridge, MA. Mills, P.K., Chase, R.B. and Margulies, N. (1983), Motivating the client/employee system as a service production strategy, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 301-10. Parasuraman, A. (1986), Customer-orientated organizational culture: a key to successful services marketing, in Venkatesan, M., Schmalensee, D.M. and Marshall, C. (Eds), Creativity in Services Marketing: Whats New, What Works, Whats Developing, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 73-7. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1988), SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of quality, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 12-40.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1994), Reassessment of expectations as a comparison standard in measuring service quality: implications for further research, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58, January, pp. 111-24. Rathmell, J.M. (1966), What is meant by services?, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 30, October, pp. 32-6. Schank, R.C. and Abelson, R.P. (1977), Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding, LEA, Hillsdale, NJ. Smith, R.A. and Houston, M.J. (1986), Script-based evaluations of satisfaction with services, in Venkatesan, M., Schmalensee, D.M. and Marshall, C. (Eds), Creativity in Services Marketing: Whats New, What Works, Whats Developing, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 59-62. Tan, D.L. (1986), The assessment of quality in higher education: a critical review of the literature and research, Research in Higher Education, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 223-65. Teas, R.K. (1993), Expectations, performance evaluation, and consumers perceptions of quality, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 57, October, pp. 18-34. Teas, R.K. (1994), Expectations as a comparison standard in measuring service quality: an assessment of a reassessment, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58, January, pp. 132-9. Ward, S. (1974), Consumer socialisation, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 1, September, pp. 1-14. Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L.L. (1990), Delivering Service Quality: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations, Free Press, New York, NY.

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