A Study of Academic Service Quality and Instructional Quality in a Midwestern Higher Education Environment
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Authors
Greiner, Keith
Issue Date
2000-06
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Education, Higher--Aims and objectives--United States. , Educational evaluation--United States. , Total quality management--United States.
Alternative Title
Abstract
The problem: The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between perceptions of academic service quality and instructional quality in a higher education environment. Academic service was defined as service that is not directly related to the classroom activity. This included adaptations of Parasuraman et al. (1988) constructs of tangibles (i.e. classroom facility) and relationships between student and faculty including reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Instructional quality was defined along Marsh’s (1982) nine dimensions: learning, enthusiasm,
organization, group interaction, individual rapport, breadth, examinations, assignments,
and workload/difficulty. Quality was measured along three dimensions suggested by Parasuraman et al. (1985): expected, observed and quality gap between expected and observed.
Procedures: The study employed pre and post surveys of a cohort of 360 students during the fall semester of their higher education experience. The expectation segment was completed at the beginning of the semester and the observed segment was completed after three months. Various statistical analyses were performed including
correlations, factor analysis and t-tests.
Findings: The findings included a high correlation between service and instructional quality. Instructional quality formed a separate construct from academic service quality while academic service quality overlapped with instructional quality in three subscales: enthusiasm, organization, and rapport. Workload was not found to be a construct of either instructional or service quality while tangibles were found to be a
construct of observed quality, but were not a construct of the gap between expected and
observed quality. Expected academic service and instructional quality significantly exceeded observed academic and instructional quality for first year students.
Conclusions: The findings supported conclusions that academic service quality is related to instructional quality. While the relationships exist at overall and subscale levels and across a variety of demographic variables, the factor constructs of instructional quality are clearly distinguished from academic service quality with
academic service quality constructs including instructional subscales for interpersonal
relationships.
Recommendations: Recommendations for future research included expansion of the study to distance environments, studies of persistence, and participant mood states.
Description
112 leaves. Advisor: Thomas Westbrook. Notice: This pdf document was created from an original electronic word-processing file. The text is the same as the original paper-bound copy that is located at the Drake University Cowles Library. The signature page is a scanned copy of an
original. The document was converted to pdf format using a word processing program released after the paper document was created. Because of the change in word-processing programs, the pagination of this document is different from the original. The Table of Contents entries have been updated to show pages for this pdf document.
Citation
Publisher
Drake University