Development of Service Quality Scale in Higher Education: A Validity and Reliability Study

Abstract

Students have become highly critical and analytical in selecting the higher education institution they would like to study at. It has become important for higher education institutions to be preferred by such prospective students as well as ensuring the commitment and retention of their current students. Universities, as the most important representatives of higher education institutions, are evaluated directly and indirectly by their stakeholders regarding the quality of the services they provide. Service quality and satisfaction surveys based on these evaluations can have a wide variety of implications on institutional rankings, preferability, financial policies, etc. This study aims to develop a scale specific to Turkish Higher Education Institutions to determine the quality of services offered in higher education according to the satisfaction perceptions of undergraduate students. Accordingly, the first draft of a 53-item seven-dimensional five-point Likert type scale was created. The piloting version of the scale was applied to a total of 500 undergraduate students, of whom 346 were female and 149 male, who were continuing their studies in 15 faculties of a public university in Turkey. Further, particular care was taken to include students who were in their second year or higher seniority at the university so that they would have had sufficient time to benefit from the services offered. A 29-item structure with three sub-dimensions was revealed as a result of the exploratory factor analysis performed. The sub-dimensions were named as Academic services, Administrative services, and Campus facilities. The findings of the confirmatory factor analysis conducted on 1782 participants support the structure validity of the scale. Based on the findings, the Service Quality in Higher Education Scale has been determined to be a highly reliable and valid scale that can be used to specifically measure the quality of services offered in higher education.