Academic service quality and instructional quality

Abstract

This article reports a study of the relationship between academic service quality and instructional quality in higher education. The study included 360 students enrolled in first-year biology course. Eighty-two percent of the participants were in the first semester of their college. Academic service was an adaptation of five business dimensions; instructional quality was measured by nine dimensions. The use of business dimensions suggested that the instructor/student relationship may be seen in the marketing context of an exchange between two parties. The study found a high correlation between academic service and instructional quality. Academic service quality overlapped instructional quality in three dimensions: enthusiasm, organization, and rapport. The findings suggest relationships exist at both an overall level and at subscale levels across a variety of demographic variables. The factor constructs of instructional quality are clearly distinguished from academic service quality, but there is an overlap in constructs describing interpersonal relationships. The study has major significance for the blending of academic and student personnel concerns in the academy. The authors recommend longterm studies of [8] relationships between expected and observed quality, long-term relationships between instruction and service quality, and adaptation of the instruments to distance-learning.