Students’ Expectations and Perceptions of Service Quality Performance: University student advisors in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Wee Ming Ong B Comm Grad Dip (International Business) M Bus (International Business) RMIT University School of Management January 2013 i Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledge has been made. ii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and assistance of several people who have contributed to and given valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this research. I am sincerely thankful to them for their sharing, support and patience in completing this long and exhausting doctoral journey.
First of all, I am extremely thankful to my supervisor, Professor Alan Nankervis, for his support, encouragement, guidance, feedback and invaluable insight throughout the entire doctoral process. Without Professor Nankervis’s positive attitude and encouragement, I would not have had the courage to persevere with this research. Second, I deeply appreciate the companionship, involvement and support of my husband, Lawrence Wei Sin Tay, who has given me the strength and to make this up- and-down journey smoother for me. Thanks for your involvement in collecting data, your moral support during the presentation session and your company whenever I needed to complete a task in the research.
Third, without the guidance and support on data analysis from Dr Serene Siew Im Ng, I would not have been able to complete the chapter and progress further. I would like to thank Dr Ng for her kindness, involvement, assistance and warm friendship that allowed me to progress to the next step of the research. iii I would like to show my deep appreciation to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the research. Thanks to my family for being patient to see me complete the research, friends who assisted me to collect data, the administrative staff at RMIT who prepared documents and answered my queries, and many more.
Last but not least, I would like to delicate this doctoral work to my late father, Ong Ah Seng, who gave me vast moral and financial support to pursue my studies in Australia. The thesis was professionally edited by Dr Margaret Johnson of The Book Doctor. Dr Johnson has provided editing service based on Standard D Language and Illustrations of RMIT University HDR Policy and Procedures Handbook. This included clarity, voice and tone, grammar and usage, spelling and punctuation, specialised and foreign material, and illustrations and tables.
iv Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1 Introduction.2 The Role of Services in an Economy…….3 The Services Sector……………………………………………………………9 1.2 Services – The higher education environment .4 Background of Problems.1 Higher education changes, trends and concerns in Australia .2 Higher education changes, trends and concerns in Malaysia .3 Higher education changes, trends and concerns in Singapore .5 Purpose and Significance of the Study .6 Structure and Outline of Thesis. 28 Chapter 2 Literature Review…………………………………………………….2 Service – Definitions and Characteristics .1 Definitions of service .2 Characteristics of service .3 Customers in Service Delivery .1 Customers in higher education .2 The importance of students’ views .4 Customer Contact Personnel .5 Disconfirmation of Expectations .6 Perceived Quality of Service – Initial Development .7 The Quality of Service – Further Development .8 Factors Influencing Customers’ Expectations of Services .9 Instruments to Measure the Quality of Service.2 Validity and reliability of SERVQUAL .10 Criticisms of SERVQUAL .1 Perceptions-only scores .2 Use of difference scores, reliability and validity .3 Applicability of SERVQUAL .11 Responses to Criticisms .1 Perceptions-only scores .2 Use of difference scores, reliability and validity .3 Applicability of SERVQUAL .12 The Relationship between Quality of Service, Customer Satisfaction, and Behavioural Intention .13 The Quality of Service in Higher Education .14 Culture and the Quality of Service.1 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions .1 Criticisms and responses.2 Validity and reliability .2 Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions .3 The impact of culture on quality of service .4 The relationship between culture and the quality of service dimensions .15 Student Gender and the Quality of Service .16 Research Questions and Hypotheses……………………………………. 101 Chapter 3 Research Methodology……………………………………………….1 Selection of participants .2 Selection of student participants .3 Customer service centres – the student advisors.4 Expectations and perceptions, and the discrepancy/gap regarding quality of service…………………………………………………….5 Culture and the quality of service .6 Student gender and the quality of service .8 Sample size and procedure.9 Questionnaire administration procedure .11 Reliability and validity of instruments. 132 Chapter 4 Analysis of Research Findings……………………………………….2 Preliminary Examination of Data .1 Data cleaning and screening .2 Reliability and normality testing.
188 vii Chapter 5 Interpretation and Discussion….2 Review of Research Findings and Discussion .2 Context for the Study .4 Summary and Implications of the Findings .5 Significance (Contribution) of the Research .6 Research Limitations and Future Research Direction .1 Selection of samples and faculty.3 Front-line staff as participants .266 Appendix 2: Letter to seeking approval for students’ participants……………….276 Appendix 3: Cover Letter………………………………………………………….277 Appendix 4: Ethics Approval………………………………………………………278 viii List of Tables Table 1.1 Examples of the diversity of services .1 Reliability, Mean, Standard Deviation, Kurtosis and Skewness .3 Independent Sample T-test for Expectations of the Quality of Service between First- and Third-year Students in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore .4 Independent Sample T-test for Perception of the Quality of Service between First- and Third-year Students in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore .5 Independent Sample T-test for Discrepancy/Gap of the Quality of Service between First- and Third-year Students in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore .6 Standardised Regression for Expectations (H4) .7 Standardised Regression for Perceptions (H5) .8 Standardised Regression for Discrepancy/Gap (H6) .9 Independent Sample T-test for Male and Female Students’ Expectations of the Quality of Service in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore .10 Independent Sample T-test for Male and Female Students’ Perceptions of the Quality of Service in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore .11 Independent Sample T-test for Male and Female Students’ Discrepancy/Gap regarding the Quality of Service in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore .12 Summary of Hypothesis Testing. 191 ix List of Figures Figure 2.1 Total Perceived Quality .2 Quality of Service Model .2 Conceptual Framework – Expectations, Perceptions and Discrepancy/Gap Model of the Quality of Service (Abstract) .3 Conceptual Framework – Culture and the Quality of Service (Abstract) .4 Conceptual Framework – Students’ Gender and the quality of service (Abstract). 123 x Abstract As colleges and universities have attempted to become more student-oriented (Wright 1996), students’ perceptions of the higher education experience have become more important to tertiary institutions. Two elements of students’ experience, their treatment during the service process and the actual outcomes experienced by them, affect their judgment of the quality of service and ultimately influence their choice for enrolment in higher education institutions.
In order to compete effectively in the marketplace, institutions need to differentiate themselves from their competitors by providing higher quality services (Joseph 1998). To consider how, and to what effect, this is done, this study focuses on the discrepancies/gaps between expected and perceived services, using a modified SERVQUAL instrument to examine students’ perceptions of the quality of service in higher education environments across Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. This study also examines the influence of cultural dimensions and gender on students’ perceptions of discrepancies/gaps between expected and experienced the quality of service. This study uses a modified SERVQUAL instrument to assess the quality of service, developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry in 1988; it employs five dimensions (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy).
Samples are taken from first- and third-year undergraduate business degree students from Australian, 1 Malaysian and Singaporean Universities. The usable sample size is 1277 in the study. The modified SERVQUAL instrument consists of 22 items measuring the expectations of customers and similarly worded 22 items measuring their perceptions of experience to determine the quality of the services provided. A seven-point scale ranging from strongly agree (7) to strongly disagree (1) accompanies each statement.
The findings show a significant difference between first- and third-year students’ expectations and perceptions of the quality of service in Malaysia and Singapore. There is a significant difference in the perceived discrepancies in the quality of service between first- and third-year students in Singapore. It is also found that cultural dimensions have a significant impact on students’ expectations and perceptions, with discrepancies evident between first- and third-year students in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. A third finding is male and female students’ expectations and perceptions of the quality of service in Australia are significantly different.
Examiner’s comment: Discuss the actual results and their implication. In Hypothesis 1, the findings show a significant difference between first- and third-year students’ expectations of the quality of service in Malaysia and Singapore. This means first-year students have a lower expectation of the quality of service than third-year students. This could be due to as new students they do not know what to expect of the university; the experiences they have gathered were during the higher school or college, which is a very different environment from a university setting.
In Hypothesis 2, the findings show no significant difference between first- and third- year students’ perceptions of the quality of service in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. This implies that the students have satisfactory experiences with services provided by student advisors. In Hypothesis 3, the findings show there is a 2 significant difference in the perceived discrepancies in the quality of service between first- and third-year students in Singapore. This indicates that the third-year students’ expectation are not met, thus, they are dissatisfied with the services provided by the student advisors.
This unsatisfactory perceived of the quality of service is a weakness of the student service centre that require re-training of the staffs for better improvement on the quality of service. In hypotheses 4, 5 and 6, the findings show that cultural dimensions have a significant impact on students’ expectations and perceptions, with discrepancies evident between first- and third-year students in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Interestingly, the findings raise that should Singapore still be classified on high level of power distance dimension given the changes it has undergone since Hofstede’s (1980, 1991) original classification, which need further investigation. In Hypothesis 7 and 8, the findings show male and female students’ expectations and perceptions of the quality of service in Australia are significantly different.
This means that the female students in Australia have higher expectations and perceptions of the quality of service than male students. This is most likely due to Australia is a low power distance society that encourages involvement from male and female employees; women are more sensitive to the relational aspect of service interactions than their male counterparts. In hypothesis 9, the finding show no significant difference between male and female students’ discrepancy/gap in Australia, Malaysia or Singapore. This implies that male and female students’ expectations are met and the quality of service is perceived to be more than satisfactory.
3 A lack of knowledge about students’ perceptions might lead management to misallocate resources in attempts to improve the quality of their university; such misdirected efforts could result in further student dissatisfaction. This study’s analysis of the discrepancy/gap between expectations and perceptions of the quality of service, identifies deficiencies and areas of dissatisfaction that offer opportunities for university managers to improve overall student services, to build a long-term relationship with the customers, and to improve the institution’s reputation.1 Introduction This chapter discusses the role of services in a global economy, the range of industries in the services sector, the background of higher education issues across various countries, and the purpose and significance of this study. It also defines the research questions and provides a summary of the subsequent chapters.2 The Role of Services in an Economy In today’s competitive and dynamic environment, the services sector has become one of the key drivers for global economy development.