The SERVQUAL instrument to measure service quality in higher education – A case study

¹ CICE, Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal
² Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal
³ Universidade de Évora, Portugal
⁴ Universidade Agostinho Neto, Luanda

^* Corresponding author: ana.rolo@esce.ips.pt

Abstract

Students and employers, are the “clients” of Higher Education Institutions (HEI), so it is important to obtain their feedback on the quality of HEI and the courses they attend. This article aims to listen to students’ opinion as “clients” of higher education, based on their expectations and perceptions, to measure the quality of the service of HEI. The results from empirical research were presented on the measurement of expectations and perceptions to assess the quality of services provided by a HEI perceived by students, based on observations obtained through survey. Quantitative methodology and data analysis techniques were applied. The SERVQUAL questionnaire was filled by 271 students who attended the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year of the five undergraduate courses taught by the institution, in the academic year 2021/2022. The values obtained for the expectations were very high which translated into negative deviations (Gaps). Thus, we can conclude that ESCE students are very demanding, have high expectations or are very demanding when they classify perceptions by assigning them low values.