Quality of Higher Education Service and its Impact on Students Perceived Value Satisfaction and Loyalty An Empirical Study of Universities of Uttarakhand

Abstract

Higher education has seen a remarkable growth and has become a key component of national development and competitiveness. Certain structural changes like privatization and extensive competition in the higher educational institution as well as universities are now become common in almost all the parts of the globe. Higher education institutions must therefore focus on its quality of services aiming to gain competitive advantage. The consequences of service quality determine the value perceptions; emotional and cognitive satisfaction derived by the primary stakeholders of a higher education institution and influences their behavioral outcomes. This research is directed towards examining management and engineering studentsand#8223; perception of higher education service quality as measured by its multiple dimensions that contribute to form quality perceptions and their consequences. A total of 539 respondents have participated in the survey. These students are studying in the universities in and around Dehradun in Uttarakhand. The extensive review of literature helped to identify the relevant quality factors that were grouped into those that make perceived service quality (measured by academic aspects, non academic aspects, access, understanding, reputation, program issues) and student experience quality as measured by service outcomes (career opportunities), interaction and peer to peer quality.Confirmatory Factor Analysis is carried out on the data with maximum likelihood criteria for the measurement and validation of the constructs. Chi-square test for assessing the association of the constructs with demographics is used. Validation using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis has been done on all the constructs and it was found that they have the model indices well within the acceptable range, indicating the convergence and consistency of the data. Internal consistency is tested using Cronbachand#8223;s Alpha coefficient. The overall alpha coefficient is 0.920.