Title: Students' perceptions of service quality at a Greek higher education institute

Authors: Vasiliki G. Vrana; Sotirios G. Dimitriadis; George J. Karavasilis

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece ' Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece ' Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece

Abstract: Competition in the higher education industry is becoming more and more intense. Higher education institutes need to focus their efforts on measuring service quality and develop processes for improving offered services in order to satisfy students, their primary customers, and other stakeholders. HEdPERF is a comprehensive performance-based measuring scale that captures the authentic determinants of service quality within the sector of higher education. However, when HEdPERF scale is used in different countries and education systems, factor loadings differ from the proposed original dimensions. Thus, the paper aims at developing a modification of the HEdPERF measurement scale in order to identify students' opinions about service quality of education in a higher education institute in Greece. The research findings suggest that the instrument is suitable for use in the Greek education context, as the proposed dimensions present high reliability and validity indices. The implementation of the instrument at the Technological Education Institute of Central Macedonia revealed that students have in general a positive opinion about the Institute. However, other higher education institutes should replicate the study in order to further empirically test the proposed dimensions.

Keywords: service quality assurance; QA; performance measurement; HEdPERF; R language; student perceptions; Greece; higher education institutes; HEIs; education quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDSRM.2015.072770

International Journal of Decision Sciences, Risk and Management, 2015 Vol.6 No.1, pp.80 - 102

Received: 27 Apr 2015
Accepted: 23 Jul 2015
Published online: 28 Oct 2015 *

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