Defining Service Quality Attributes at Different Levels of Operation in Higher Education Institutions: How Could the Service Quality Perceptions of Students Contribute to a Better Understanding of Improvement Directions?

Abstract The service quality literature focusing on higher education has been expanding rapidly parallel with the increasing marketization of the sector which poses new challenges against institutional improvement efforts and the applied management toolkit. The primary objective of our paper is to demonstrate the results of a surveying carried out in the Hungarian higher education system. The participating students evaluated the importance of quality attributes that were previously defined at the programme and the institution levels of operation and also rated the performance they had experienced along the same attributes. Both the quantitative and the qualitative results demonstrate that the student perceptions about the institutional image primarily stem from their service quality perceptions gained at the programme level defining the total student experience. Therefore, the institutional actions aiming service quality improvements should incorporate the programme level experiences of students both for enhancing total student satisfaction and institutional reputation.