HIGHER EDUCATION SERVICE QUALITY MODEL (HESQUAL) TO IMPROVE SERVICE QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTES

Assessing and improving service quality specifically in the service industry is a herculean task considering the inherent nature of services which are high on experience and credence attributes, and hence cannot be evaluated prior to consumption. In consumption situations, consumers make use of decision heuristics which largely depend on the brand image of the options in the consideration set. Education industry of India is going through a massive transformation considering the widespread application of technology and increasing competition with the entry of corporate groups, the survival of private and self-financed institutes will largely depend on the brand image they manage to create which in turn will rely on the service quality they manage to offer to the consumers (students). A SERVQUAL scale has been in existence for long and has proven successful in measuring and improving the service quality of service organizations. This research paper aims to develop a and empirically test a HESQUAL model to measure service quality of education institutes taking cues from the SERVQUAL scale developed by Parasuraman et al. Based on literature review a conceptual model was built consisting of 72 attributes related to service quality. A Sample of 200 students was selected and data were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis. The final model consisted of 5 dimensions with 45 items. This model will be useful for education institutes to continuously improve their service quality.