Perceived service quality in higher education sector: A case study about the students at Bülent Ecevit university

The universities are institutions which provide the necessary knowledge and training of human resources for the development and improvement of countries. Therefore, they are among the leading intuitions establishing the future of nations. The service quality of institutions of higher education can be evaluated by assessing university students' satisfaction regarding level of education, social activities as well as concern offered by the universities they attended. In this study, Servqual Scale developed by Parasuraman vd., (1985) was used to measure the service quality presented in institutions of higher education. The questionnaire prepared according to 22 perception and expectation items of Servqual scale was applied to the students on Farabi Campus at Bulent Ecevit University The aim of this research is to measure those students' perceptions and expectations in terms of the level of service quality they receive and to contribute to the efforts of developing the service quality in institutions of higher education in general by determining to what extent students' expectations are met and which expectation is more important than others. It has been observed in this study that there is a significant difference in all dimensions of service quality for perception and expectation. The service quality dimension regarding the highest averages of students' perception and expectation among services offered at the university has been evaluated as the dimension of "Reliability". Thus, it can be said that "Reliability" is the most important quality dimension for the students. As a result, in order to increase the service quality in institutions of higher education, the expectations of students observed were tried to be well determined. It is important for institutions of higher education aiming at a service of good quality to meet students' expectations by detecting their wishes and requirements well, and producing goods and services having essential features to satisfy their demands.