Service Quality: A Study of Students Satisfaction in Higher Institution

For a higher educational institution, students' satisfaction plays an important part in the measurement of customer satisfaction in assessing service quality. Student satisfaction measures how well the expectations of a student relating to a service provided by the university. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the elements of service quality process and the learning outcome and its relationship to students' satisfaction level. The researcher conducted the research based on the SERVQUAL model to measure the gap between students' expectation for the service and their perception of actual service delivered. The five dimensions of service quality are studied, which include assurance, responsiveness, empathy, reliability, and tangibility. Several satisfaction levels were also evaluated include the student's satisfaction level on the service quality of the lecturers, physical facilities, the learning outcome and their demographic profiles. The data were analysed using the SPSS software. The result indicated that the students are satisfied with the quality of the lecturers, physical facilities and the learning outcome but there are certain elements in the service delivery that need to be improved. These are indicated by the gaps between students' expectation and their actual experience. The finding helps the management of the university understand both student expectations and perceptions of specific services, and areas that need to be improved.