Understanding Ghanaian Students’ Perception of Service Quality in Higher Education

Abstract

Measuring service quality in higher education has become an important exercise to determine students’ level of satisfaction and possibility of continue enrolment. This paper focuses on students’ perception of service quality in Ghanaian higher institutions with specific objective of identifying the service quality criteria used by students of Tamale Polytechnic to evaluate the quality of service offered by the polytechnic. The HEdPERF model was adopted as the conceptual framework for the paper. Questionnaires were used to collect data from randomly selected 372 students from Tamale Polytechnic. The study found that, excellent and quality programs run by the polytechnic, highly educated instructors in, timely delivery of promises by the polytechnic staff, reputation of the programs offered by the polytechnic and access to materials at the school’s library were the key service quality criteria that affect the students’ perception of service quality. The study recommended that, higher institutions should introduce programs that are highly marketable with various areas of specialisation, continue to recruit high calibre lecturers and deliver promises on time. Higher institutions are also advised to improve students-staff relationship and work hard to improve their reputation in order to positively influence students’ perception of service quality.

Keywords: Students Perception, Service Quality, HEdPERF Model, Higher Education, Ghana