Quality perception in higher education - using SERVQUAL methodology

Understanding the student’s perception in higher education goes far beyond student retention. Factors such as satisfaction, motivation and irritability points help not only in a more convergent service planning between the institution’s efforts in the face of student expectation, but also in better learning. The perceived quality is difficult to measure and subjective. This work aims to understand the perceived quality of the student and analyze the SERQUAL model for its application in higher education. The 5 dimensions of the model were correlated with academic pillars and the sub-items of each dimension were expanded, according to previous studies. The research was conducted with 15% of the universe of students from a higher education course, which represents 69 students, from a private institution. The results were validated in a focus group of 5 students using tools such as the Ishikawa diagram and the Interrelationship Diagram. As a result of the application it was diagnosed that students have a higher expectation than the service offered, which results in a perceived negative quality. Points such as ‘parking’ and ‘operational service’, which are not essential characteristics of the educational service, directly impact on the perception of quality and consequently on the student’s satisfaction. As a main result it was noticed that the method points out the problems that most bother the students. They tend to analyze the whole and camouflage items in the face of these stressful stimuli. The method proved to be an ally in the detection of problems of perceived felt quality, but that requires beyond the determination of the data to understand the root cause of the results.