Title: Development and validation of instrument for service quality of TQM educational institutions: external customers' perspective

Authors: Albert Justice Kwarteng

Addresses: Academic Planning and Quality Assurance (DAPQA), University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana

Abstract: The study aims to identify quality dimensions, and provide valid and reliable measurement instruments for the service quality of TQM education institutions from the external customers' perspective. The external customers of three traditional universities in a developing country were involved in the study. A five-point Likert scale 26-item instrument was developed to elicit information from the selected participants. Out of 1,050 questionnaires administered, 834 were returned with 819 being eligible responses with the response rate of 79.4%. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded same five principles with the 26 items which accounted for 71.3% total variance explained. The internal consistency with an overall KMO value of 0.97 indicated higher reliability. The instrument is found to be valid and reliable. Further studies could be done to capture more public and private universities for comparison. The instrument could be used periodically to assess the service quality performances by the education institutions.

Keywords: external customer; service quality dimension; factor analysis; internal consistency; expectation and perception; validity and reliability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2022.124703

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2022 Vol.36 No.2, pp.293 - 311

Received: 17 Aug 2020
Accepted: 06 Jan 2021
Published online: 08 Aug 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article