Abstract

Most developing countries are facing challenges in keeping to the required standards of education.

This study focused on determining the factors that influenced students’ perception on service quality. In specific the study sought to establish how assurance dimension affected students’ perception to service quality, how responsiveness dimension impacted students’ perception on service quality, how reliability dimension affected perception of students on service quality, how tangibility dimension played a role in determining students’ perception on universities’ service quality, and how empathy dimension affected the students’ perception on service quality. HIPS University in Buea in order to obtain responses randomly from different strata identified covering a sample size of 50 respondents. Data was obtained through the use of structured questionnaires and was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) based on descriptive techniques, and results were presented on tables and figures to enhance easy interpretation. The study found out that assurance is one of the major dimensions that determine the perceptions of students with regard to service delivery. About 67% of the respondents had indicated that HIPS institution was always involved in giving surety of delivering quality services. The Pearson correlation and regression was applied on data, and results exposed a positive and a significant relationship between the variables. This study found is significant relationship between the reliability, responsiveness, tangibility and assurance as the sample population of the study considers them important for improvement of service quality in the university.

Based on the research findings and conclusions, recommendations to enhance service quality and improvement of nature of education services are given.  Recommendation is given to university management to ensure that student’s needs are given priority by addressing their needs and being treated as customers to university.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

In recent years massive changes in policy, structure and status of higher education institutions have taken place all over the world. Issues such as privatization and increased competition among higher learning institutions are now common in most countries. Hill (1995), states that higher education is a service industry and that service quality is a critical determinant of the success of higher learning institutions (Landrum et al., 2007).

In order to succeed in today’s competitive higher education sector, service quality is of essence to any institution of higher learning (Sandhu and Bala, 2011). In view of this, higher education institutions must assess the quality of their services since outstanding service quality can provide them with competitive advantage (Albretch, 1991).

If the higher education institutions provide quality service which meet or exceed that expectations of their students, their services will be evaluated as high quality service and if not, the services will be judged as poor (Zammito et al, 1996).

Customer satisfaction largely depends on the quality of services provided by any organization (Zhou, 2011). Fundamentally, concerns on service quality have increasingly become common due to the fact that most consumers (customers) continue to be well informed on their sovereignty and right to receive better and quality services. This is widely enhanced due to availability of information on products and services quality.

Irrespective of the sector in question, globally the consumers expect to be served well and have their concerns and needs satisfied to their expectations (Daniel, 2012). This has been seen both in the developed and developing countries, in almost all sectors including the education sector which is seen as the vehicle behind economic and social development. In a broader perspective, education institutions play a very significant role in developing and training management experts for different industries by integrating their programs and benchmarking with best institutions in the world to enable students become suitable in various industries (Zeithemal, 2014).

In Cameroon, private institutions in higher learning have come up to help bridge the gap between the students’ needs and the capacities of public institutions. However, quality service by universities can be said to be one of the issues which affects satisfaction in the industry and therefore worthy an exploration in this study.

Universities are important vehicles in promoting educational goals in many countries all over the world. They supplement service delivery especially where the public universities would not have managed to cater for the academic needs due to overwhelming numbers of students seeking higher education services (Uden, 2013). Alternatively, these institutions are seen as forms of investments, in which case the owners of such institutions benefit economically, as well as create more job opportunities not only to the faculty members, but also to many other professions such as accountants, human resource managers, administrators, planners, medical practitioners, and many other people who are employed in the support staff to help promote service delivery in such institutions.

 

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Most developing countries are facing challenges in keeping to the required high standards of education (Hasan et al., 2011).

The subject of service quality has in the recent past sparked lots of concerns from different quarters in the bid of trying to foster an appropriate system that can align Cameroonian youths and learners to the global demands in the professional environments, which are entirely dependent on academic achievements (Rodrigues, 2013). Nevertheless, it is more complex to conceptualize the quality of service as opposed to that of goods

Given the fact education is purely a service provided to the publics; its measurement can only be measured against some indicators that are different from those used in goods.

Some of the approaches include the use of SERVQUAL model, which expounds on the five service dimensions (Jayanth, 2015). Ideally, the dimensions can be measured based on the perceptions of the customers who receive the service, and in this case the students (Raphael, 2014).

The first aim of this study therefore was to identify how the students’ perceptions are affected by the nature and quality of services offered in private universities in Cameroon, taking into consideration the challenges faced by private universities in the country such as lack of funding among others. It is against this background that this study wanted to find out the impact of service quality in student satisfaction on the context of private universities in the Kenyan higher education sector.

 

1.3 General Objective

The objective of this study is to evaluate the student perceptions about the service quality of HIPS University with reference to satisfaction of their students. Secondly, a service quality and student satisfaction model will be developed by using SERVQUAL instrument to observe the relationship among them.

1.3.1 Specific Objectives

1. To assess how tangibility, affect students’ perception on quality service.
2. To establish how reliability, affect students’ perception on quality service.
3. To determine how responsiveness affects students’ perception on quality service.
4. To establish how assurance impacts students’ perception on quality service.
5. To determine how empathy, affect students’ perception on quality service

 

1.4 Hypothesis

In this research we proposed five hypotheses with brief analysis as suggested by Beaumont and Goatman (2012).

H1: There is significant relationship between tangibles and student satisfaction.

H2: There is significant relationship between reliability and student satisfaction.

H3: There is significant relationship between responsiveness and student satisfaction

H4: There is significant relationship between assurance and student satisfaction.

H5: There is significant relationship between empathy and student satisfaction.

 

1.5 Research Questions

1. How does tangibility affect students’ perception on quality service?
2. How reliability affect students’ perception on quality service?
3. How responsiveness does affects students’ perception on quality service?
4. How assurance impacts students’ perception on quality service?
5. How does empathy affect students’ perception on quality service?