“Service Quality and Student Satisfaction in Government Higher Education Institutions: An Analytical Investigation”

Abstract

The current study measure the service quality in government higher education institutions (HEIs) affiliated with Pt. Ravi Shankar Shukla University, situated in the Raipur district of Chhattisgarh. The study adopted the SERVQUAL model as the initial framework for assessing service quality and integrated student satisfaction as an outcome variable. To increase the relevance of the model within the higher education context, two other dimensions, namely teaching and learning outcome, were added with the five traditional SERQUAL dimensions: Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy, and Tangibility. Primary data were collected from 540 students enrolled in selected government higher education institutions through a structured questionnaire. Reliability analysis was conducted to evaluate the internal consistency of the measurement scale. The results revealed that the dimensions of Responsiveness and Empathy exhibited Cronbach’s alpha values below the generally accepted threshold, indicating comparatively lower reliability. In contrast, the remaining dimensions demonstrated satisfactory levels of internal consistency and were considered reliable for further analysis. To evaluate service quality, students’ expectation and perceptions were measured and compared across all the seven dimensions. To determine the difference between perceived and expected service quality gap score were calculated. The findings represent the existence of negative gaps across all dimensions, suggesting that students’ expectation exceeded their perceptions of the service provided. From all the dimensions examined responsiveness and empathy recorded the largest gap score, indicating significant shortcoming in institutional responsiveness to student needs and provision of individual attention. On the contrary, the dimensions of Teaching, Learning Outcomes, Reliability, Assurance, and Tangibility exhibited relatively smaller gaps, indicating comparatively better performance. The study further evaluate change in perception, expectations and satisfaction level across different demographic characteristics of students. Overall, the result suggest that students are generally satisfied with the quality of service in by government higher education institutions. Moreover the identified service quality gap focuses on the need for continuous improvement, particularly in responsiveness and empathy, to better suits institutional performance with student expectations and improve educational service quality.