American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Identification of the Service Quality Dimensions of Pharmaceutical
Education
David Holdford, PhD, and Anuprita Patkar, MSPharm
Department of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University
Objectives. Describe the perceptual dimensions of student assessments of the quality of their education. Link those dimensions with student satisfaction with their educational experience.
Methods. A 37-item educational service quality instrument and a seven-item satisfaction scale were
administered to 372 students in their final year of education in years 1999 to 2002.
Results. Factor analysis identified 5 dimensions of service quality labeled resources, interpersonal
behavior of faculty, faculty expertise, faculty communication, and administration. Stepwise regression
analysis showed that all factors were significantly related to overall satisfaction with each explaining
the following percent variance: faculty interpersonal behavior (47%), administration (8%), resources
(4%), faculty communication (3%), and faculty knowledge (1%). Mean scores of service quality dimensions demonstrated significant improvement from 1999 to 2002 for four of the five dimensions.
Conclusion. The 5 dimensions of educational service quality found in this study are unique to the services marketing literature. Student perceptions of faculty are multidimensional with faculty interpersonal behavior explaining the most variance in student satisfaction responses.
Keywords: pharmaceutical education, service quality, assessment, student satisfaction
from satisfaction primarily because it is qualityspecific, while satisfaction deals with quality and nonquality (eg, price) evaluations.
INTRODUCTION
Collecting student feedback about various aspects of
pharmaceutical education has become an important
part of educational outcomes assessment. Educators
have developed numerous feedback mechanisms to
assess student perceptions of their educational experiences. Focus groups, town hall meetings, course
evaluations, and one-to-one discussions are but a few.
Student feedback about educational services is useful for several reasons. It can be used in quality improvement programs to help educators recognize opportunities to improve services and establish positive
student perceptions.4,5 Service quality assessments can
also identify gaps between students’ perceptions of
education and that of educators.5 Educators often have
misconceptions of student attitudes because of the anecdotal manner in which student comments are received. Systematic service quality evaluations can help
identify the incidence and strength of student feelings.
Finally, service quality assessments can be used as a
strategic tool for marketing educational programs.1,6
Pharmacy schools are in an increasingly competitive
market for students. Schools that do not fulfill the
needs and desires of their students will be at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace.
Some researchers have suggested that educators
should evaluate student perceptions of educational service quality.1-3 Educational service quality is defined as
a student’s overall evaluation of services received as
part of their educational experience.3 It describes a variety of educational activities both inside and outside of
the classroom including classroom instruction, faculty
member/student interactions, educational facilities, and
contacts with administration. Service quality differs
Corresponding Author: David Holdford, PhD. Mailing Address: Department of Pharmacy, P.O. Box
980533, Virginia Commonwealth University (MCV
Campus), Richmond, Virginia 23298-0581. Tel: 804828-6103.
Fax:
804-828-8359.
E-mail:
david.holdford@vcu.edu.
Dimensions of Service Quality
The services marketing literature has made significant progress exploring fundamental questions regard-
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
ing service quality. One area that has received significant attention is the multidimensional nature of services. In a seminal research study, Parasuraman,
Zeithaml, and Berry identified 10 dimensions of service quality - tangibles, reliability, responsiveness,
competency, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, access, and understanding, based upon a series
of focus group studies.7 Since that study, service quality measures have been used to assess a broad variety
of services including physician, hospital, educational,
banking, and dental.
ample, a measure of service quality may have questions that assess the attributes of speedy service, reliability of service, and friendliness of service personnel.
Respondents’ ratings of those attributes are summed to
get an overall score that indicates the degree to which
the construct pertains to them. If no further analysis of
the scale’s dimensionality is conducted, then researchers are left with analyzing the summed score and/or the
individual items.
This is problematic for several reasons. If only the
summed responses are used, significant information is
lost. A researcher who sums the ratings on 20 items in
a service quality scale into a single score has no way of
identifying which attributes of service contribute to the
score. Alternatively, if only individual items are used,
interpreting the results in an actionable way becomes a
problem. When faced with scores for 20 items, it is
difficult to identify which responses to which items are
more important. This problem is compounded due to
multicollinearity between items. Multicollinearity refers to the intercorrelation between items. It reduces
the validity of regression analyses of survey results
because regression models assume independence of
items.12 A regression analysis of service quality items
on overall satisfaction with service will violate this
assumption because perceptions of individual items
such as reliability, responsiveness, and competence
will likely be correlated. In other words, a student’s
perception of faculty member competence will be significantly associated with perceptions of faculty member friendliness, trustworthiness, and reliability. Therefore, the analysis can give erroneous regression coefficients that incorrectly state the importance of individual items.
From that initial research, Parasuraman, Zeithaml,
and Berry developed a service quality instrument
called SERVQUAL, which evaluated consumer perceptions of services. Factor analysis of consumer responses to SERVQUAL resulted in a conclusion that
there are 5 key dimensions of service quality.8
•
Reliability - the ability to deliver promised services in a dependable, accurate manner.
•
Responsiveness - the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
•
Empathy - the degree to which customers are
treated as individuals.
•
Assurance - the ability to inspire trust and confidence.
•
Tangibles - physical elements of the service
such as facilities and equipment.
Other researchers found that the 5 dimensional service quality model did not hold up under all service
experiences. New studies have demonstrated that the
specific number of service dimensions associated with
service quality varies depending on the services provided and the circumstances under which they are rendered. Mels et al found 2 dimensions of service quality,9 while Carman suggested 7 dimensions of service
quality.10 Cronin and Taylor argued against the conclusion that service quality is multidimensional and instead proposed that the construct of service quality is
unidimensional.11 In the end, researchers have concluded that the dimensionality of service quality is
situation specific.
One way to deal with the problems above is by discovering the underlying perceptual dimensions of the
construct measured by the scale.13 Perceptual dimensions describe how respondents organize and arrange perceptions about concepts in their mind. For
example, respondents may group questionnaire items
about dependability of service, keeping promises to
customers, timely delivery of service, and accurate record keeping under a perceptual dimension that can be
labeled as reliability. This means that respondents answer the questions in this dimension in a predictable
pattern that differs from responses to questions for
other dimensions like responsiveness or assurance. If
all of the items in a scale can be grouped into separate
uncorrelated dimensions, then analyses of scale responses are more valid.
Perceptual Dimensions of Service Quality
To understand the importance of this research,
background is provided on measurement scales and
dimensions. A scale that measures a psychological
construct such as satisfaction or service quality is made
up of individual questions that characterize different
attributes of the construct. Each attribute provides specific information about the overall construct. For ex-
The dimensional nature of service quality is an important issue because it can be used to explore the theo-
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
retical relationships between service constructs.13 For
instance, knowing that service quality is made up of 5
dimensions can permit researchers to explore the relationships between each dimension and constructs such
as satisfaction and loyalty. This is more challenging to
accomplish if service quality is described at the individual attribute level.
those in the SERVPERF service quality measure developed by Cronin and Taylor were used.11 The original 41 items in the ESQ instrument consisted of items
that assessed student perceptions about learning resources in the college, faculty, school administration
(ie, deans, department chairs, and office personnel),
and perceptions of their educational progress. Four
items from the original instrument relating to perceptions of educational progress were dropped from further analysis (see Analysis section for details). The final 37 items in the instrument are listed in Table 1.
Another advantage of understanding the dimensionality of service quality is that it provides more actionable results. If a series of service quality questions
can be distilled into a smaller number of uncorrelated
dimensions, then service improvement strategies that
target specific dimensions of service (eg, reliability or
responsiveness) can be developed. Rather than consider individual item scores, researchers can look at
summed scores for items within a dimension.
Overall Satisfaction. A 7-item series of questions
relating to overall satisfaction with various aspects of
the educational experience were also asked of the students. A Chronbach’s alpha coefficient calculation of
0.91 showed the 7-item instrument to be internally reliable. The 7 satisfaction items are included in Table 2.
When the dimensionality of educational service
quality is discussed, researchers have assumed the 5
dimensional model proposed by Parasuraman et al.4,5
However, no known research has been conducted to
date which has empirically identified the dimensions of
either college or professional education.
Administration of the Instrument. The ESQ survey was administered to P-4 pharmacy students before
graduation at a university in the Southeastern United
States. Four successive classes of P-4 students (graduating classes of 1999 to 2002) were surveyed during
their on-campus day in the spring semester. Three hundred twenty-five students completed the survey out of a
total of 372 P-4 students enrolled at the time of administration, for an 87% completion rate.
This study examines the dimensionality of educational service quality building upon previous research
by Holdford and Reinders.3 That research provided
evidence of the reliability and validity of the instrument, but was limited to responses from a single fourth
year pharmacy (P-4) class. Therefore, the sample was
too small to permit multivariate statistical analysis of
the data.
Hypotheses. A number of hypotheses were proposed relating to expected relationships between service quality and satisfaction. The first (H1) was based
upon the assumption that each dimension of educational service quality should have a significant relationship with overall satisfaction. H1: Resources, faculty member behavior, faculty member expertise, faculty member communication, and administration dimensions each are significantly associated with the 7item overall satisfaction measure.
This research contains a sufficient sample size to
permit analyses of the dimensionality of student responses. Holdford and Reiders proposed a priori a 3dimensional model of service quality consisting of student perceptions of school facilities, faculty member
services, and administration services.3 In this research,
an analysis was conducted to examine whether the
original 3-factor model or some other model might be
appropriate. This paper attempts to achieve the following objectives:
The next hypothesis consisted of a series of subhypotheses that were used to provide evidence of the validity of student responses. The assumption was that if
ESQ is a valid measure, then its dimensions should
correlate in a predictable manner with individual satisfaction items (H2). Therefore, we hypothesized that
resources should predict the single school facility’s
satisfaction question better than any other dimension
(H2a). At least one of the faculty member dimensions of
behavior, expertise, and communication should predict
student satisfaction with the items assessing teaching
quality, faculty members, and perceptions of intellectual development better than facilities or administration
(H2b, H2c, and H2d). It was not clear which faculty
member dimension would be the best predictor, but it
1. Describe the perceptual dimensions of student
assessments of the quality of their education.
2. Link those dimensions with student satisfaction with their educational experience.
METHODS
Measures
Educational Service Quality (ESQ). An educational service quality instrument from Holdford and
Reinders was used.3 Performance measures similar to
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
Table 1. Five Factor Model of Educational Service Quality (n=320)
Percent
Factor Variance Chronbach's
alpha
Loading Explained
Mean (SD)
8.2
0.76
1.09 (0.72)
0.62
1.32 (0.81)
0.66
Factor 4 - Facilities
1. Up-to-date teaching tools & equipment.
2. Physical facilities visually appealing & comfortable
3. Physical facilities convenient to students.
1.66 (0.93)
0.58
4. Electronic access to drug & health science information.
0.92 (0.77)
0.67
5. Computer laboratory an important asset.
6. Physical facilities readily available for use around-theclock.
0.62 (0.80)
0.77 (0.79)
0.61
0.56
Factor 2: Interpersonal Behavior of Faculty
7. Friendly & approachable.
1.01 (0.67)
0.71
8. Willing to help you.
0.97 (0.65)
0.74
9. Available outside of class.
1.18 (0.68)
0.74
10. Keep their promises.
1.23 (0.75)
0.55
11. Behavior instills confidence in students.
1.35 (0.82)
0.65
12. Sensitive to student confidentiality.
1.05 (0.74)
0.54
13. Honest with you.
1.10 (0.71)
0.62
14. Treat you with respect.
1.25 (0.77)
0.62
Factor 5: Faculty Expertise
15. Have the knowledge to answer your questions.
16. Are current with the developments in their area of
expertise.
17. Know what topics are relevant to becoming a good
pharmacist.
0.79 (0.59)
0.64
0.75 (0.64)
0.73
1.20 (0.75)
0.49
Factor 3: Faculty Communication
18. Consistent with their grading practices and what they
tell you.
1.41 (0.84)
0.73
19. Explain things in a way that you can understand.
1.26 (0.67)
0.65
20. Have your best interests at heart.
1.37 (0.74)
0.64
21. Attempt to understand my specific needs.
1.41 (0.75)
0.75
22. Make clear what they expect of you.
1.26 (0.64)
0.69
23. Usually give me adequate feedback about my
performance.
1.34 (0.77)
0.55
4
13.7
0.91
5.9
0.81
11
0.88
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
Table 1. Five Factor Model of Educational Service Quality (n=320) (Continued)
Mean (SD)
Percent
Variance
Chronbach's
Factor
alpha
Loading Explained
Factor 1: Administration
24. Show sincere interest in solving student problems.
1.16 (0.83)
0.77
25. Friendly & approachable.
1.10 (0.86)
0.83
26. Dependable.
1.12 (0.83)
0.81
27. Attempt to understand my specific needs.
1.20 (0.86)
0.8
28. Act promptly.
1.19 (0.80)
0.79
29. Willing to help you.
1.25 (0.87)
0.85
30. Honest with you.
1.19 (0.86)
0.81
31. Behavior instills confidence in students.
1.12 (0.85)
0.81
.95 (0.73)
0.72
33. Sensitive to student safety.
1.02 (0.76)
0.62
34. Keep students informed about issues that concern them.
1.09 (0.77)
0.71
35. Treat you with respect.
1.01 (0.79)
0.8
36. Have knowledge to answer your questions.
1.09 (0.81)
0.64
37. Responsive to student evaluations about the curriculum.
1.29 (0.89)
0.54
32. Sensitive to student confidentiality.
Total Model
25
0.96
63.8
0.96
Note: Scales are 0 = strongly agree, 1 = agree, 2 = somewhat agree, 3 = disagree, 4 = strongly disagree.
Five surveys could not be used in this analysis due to missing responses.
was expected that at least one faculty member dimension would be most important. Finally, the administration dimension was hypothesized to predict student
satisfaction with school administration better than with
any other dimension (H2e).
predict satisfaction with faculty members
better than the dimensions school resources
or administration.
H2d: At least one of the faculty member service
quality dimensions of faculty member behavior, expertise, or communication should
predict satisfaction with intellectual development better than the dimensions school
resources or administration.
H2e: Administration should predict satisfaction
with administration better than any other
dimension of educational service quality.
H2: Some dimensions of educational service quality should predictably correlate more highly
with some individual satisfaction items than
others:
H2a: Resources should predict satisfaction with
school facilities better than any other dimension of educational service quality.
H2b: At least one of the faculty member service
quality dimensions of faculty member behavior, expertise, or communication should
predict satisfaction with the quality of teaching better than the dimensions school resources or administration.
H2c: At least one of the faculty member service
quality dimensions of faculty member behavior, expertise, or communication should
RESULTS
Data Analysis
Descriptive Analysis. Demographic data were not
collected on individual respondents because of concerns about confidentiality. In addition, demographic
variables of gender, age, college education, degree, and
grade point average did not have significant impact on
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Elements of Satisfaction with Pharmaceutical Education
Question
I am satisfied with the school’s facilities.
Mean (SD)
1.16 (0.88)
I am satisfied that the school provided me a high quality education.
0.84 (0.74)
I am satisfied with the quality of teaching.
1.07 (0.83)
I am satisfied with the extent of my intellectual development since enrolling in
this school.
0.98 (0.77)
I am satisfied with the faculty of this school.
1.06 (0.81)
I am satisfied with the administration of this school.
1.01 (0.78)
I am satisfied with the school’s curriculum.
1.13 (0.84)
Items combined
1.09 (0.62)
Note: Scales are 0 = strongly agree, 1 = agree, 2 = somewhat agree, 3 = disagree, 4 = strongly disagree.
Chronbach’s alpha for the 7 items in the satisfaction scale = 0.91. (n=320)
Table 3. Demographic Description of Student Population Surveyed (N =372)
Variable
N (%)
Gender
Male
101 (27%)
Female
271 (73%)
Mean age (y)
28
Race
Caucasian
241 (65%)
Asian American
71 (19%)
African American
45 (12%)
Other (mixed, Hispanic, or no response)
15 (4%)
Married
59 (16%)
With children
26 (7%)
Education prior to pharmacy school
2 years
37 (10%)
3 or more years without a degree
112 (30%)
4 year degree or more
223 (60%)
Note: The above statistics describe the student population who were eligible to take the test. Only 325 students completed the
questionnaire for an 87% completion rate for eligible students.
student evaluations of service quality.3 However, it was
possible to provide some description of the surveyed student population based upon the overall demographics of
each P-4 class. These descriptions are provided in Table 3.
Mean scores and standard deviations for student
responses to the service quality instrument are shown
in Table 1. The scale varied from 0 (strongly agree) to
4 (strongly disagree) meaning that smaller the number,
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
explained 11% of variance and had a Chronbach’s alpha of 0.88. It was distinct from factor 2, interpersonal
faculty member behaviors, because it addressed issues
of communication only, while factor 2 examined a
broader range of faculty member behaviors.
the better the assessment. Mean scores ranged from
0.62 to 1.66 with student responses extending from 0 to
4 for most questions. All analyses of the collected data
were conducted using SAS for Windows, Release 8.02.
Exploratory Factor Analysis of the ESQ
Factor 4 consisted of 6 items and was labeled
resources. The resources section included questions
relating to the facilities of the school and explained
8.2% of variance. The Chronbach’s alpha reliability
coefficient was 0.76 and consisted of all items originally designed to assess school resources. This provides further evidence that students responded to the
instrument as expected.
A principal components exploratory factor analysis
with varimax rotation was performed on the original 41
items in the ESQ.13 Principal components factor analysis is a statistical technique that transforms data from
one set of variables into a smaller set of uncorrelated
factors. An orthogonal varimax rotation was conducted
because it maximizes the amount of variance described
by a factor and minimizes the correlation between factors.14
Factor 5 was labeled faculty expertise. It consisted
of questions of faculty member knowledge and expertise in their areas of teaching. Faculty member expertise explained 5.9% of variance and had a Chronbach’s
alpha of 0.81. It was distinct from the other faculty
member factors, 2 and 3, because they addressed faculty member behaviors distinct from expertise.
Factor analysis of the 41 items revealed a 5-factor
structure that explained 63.8% of total variance. The
criteria for retaining the 5 factors were eigenvalues
greater than one and the ability to describe and label
each factor. Individual items in the ESQ were retained
for further analysis if they had factor loadings greater
than 0.45 and fell into 1 of the 5 interpretable factors.
Four items relating to student perceptions of intellectual development were dropped from the ESQ because
they did not load onto an easy to identify factor. To
assess the reliability of responses, Chronbach’s alpha
coefficient was calculated for the variables within each
factor solution. All factors had coefficients greater than
or equal to 0.70, indicating evidence of reliability.15
The final 37 items in the ESQ and the 5 factors, their
loadings, and their Chronbach’s alphas are listed in
Table 1.
Mean scores and standard deviations for the 5 dimensions over 4 years are shown in Figure 1. Mean
scores show a slow but steady improvement in student
perceptions of faculty members’ interpersonal behavior, administration, and faculty member expertise. Resources showed improvement after the first year and no
further improvement in later years. Faculty member
communication scores remained consistent over the 4year assessment period. All dimensions except faculty
member communication demonstrated statistically significant improvements in later years when compared to
first year scores.
Factor 1 was labeled administration and was composed of 14 items. It explained 25% of the variance in
student responses to ESQ, and the 14 items had a total
Chronbach’s alpha of 0.96. Items in this factor consisted of all of the questions relating to the quality of
services provided by school administration. The fact
that the 14 items were originally meant to assess school
administration gives some evidence that students responded as expected.
Hypothesis Testing
Stepwise regression analyses were conducted to
test the hypotheses proposed in the methods section.
The results of the analyses are presented in Table 4. All
5 dimensions of service quality had significant relationships with overall satisfaction with the educational
experience providing evidence to support H1. The
analysis showed the extent to which the following service quality dimensions predicted overall satisfaction:
faculty member interpersonal behavior (47%), administration (8%), resources (4%), faculty member communication (3%), and faculty member expertise (1%).
Factor 2 consisted of 8 items and was labeled
interpersonal behavior of faculty. It explained 13.7%
of variance and had a Chronbach’s alpha of 0.91. The
factor was labeled interpersonal behavior of faculty
because it contained items that described behaviors
associated with development of interpersonal relationships between students and faculty members (eg, willing to help, treat you with respect).
Analyses of service quality dimensions on individual satisfaction items provided evidence to support all
of the proposed hypotheses of H2. The resources service quality dimension predicted satisfaction with facilities (H2a) better than any other dimension of educational service quality. Faculty member behavior was
most predictive of satisfaction with quality of teaching
Factor 3 was labeled faculty communication and
comprised 6 items that described the quality of communication between faculty members and students. It
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
Trend analysis of ESQ dimensions
1.6
Mean Likert Scores
1.4
1.2
1
1999 Mean
2000 Mean
0.8
2001 Mean
0.6
2002 Mean
0.4
0.2
0
Admin
Behavior
Communic
Resource
Fac. Expertise
Figure 1. Means and Standard Deviations of ESQ Dimensions by Year of Administration.
(H2b) and satisfaction with faculty members (H2d),
while faculty member expertise best predicted perceptions of intellectual development (H2c). Finally, Factor
1, administration predicted the administration satisfaction item best of all dimensions providing support for
H2e.
ing of dimensions called resources, faculty member,
and administration (Figure 2). The result for resources
was similar to that of the tangibles dimension of
Parasuraman et al, while faculty member and administration dimensions consisted of assessments of the
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy of
faculty members and administration services.
No hypotheses were developed for relationships
between service quality dimensions and overall satisfaction with the quality of education or the curriculum
because there were no clear reasons to suggest one dimension over any other. Factor 1, administration, predicted student satisfaction with the quality of their education, while faculty member behavior best predicted
student satisfaction with the school’s curriculum.
Factor analysis of the data showed a more complex
dimensional structure of educational service quality
than the proposed 3-dimensional model and a different
5-factor model than that of Parasuraman et al.17 The
resources and administration dimensions were found to
be unidimensional, but perceptions of faculty members
were multidimensional consisting of interpersonal behavior, expertise, and communication.
DISCUSSION
Examinations of the relative importance of each
service quality dimension on satisfaction found that
faculty member interpersonal behaviors were most important in explaining overall student satisfaction with
their education as measured by the 7-item satisfaction
instrument. Attributes associated with faculty member
interpersonal behavior included perceptions of faculty
member friendliness and approachability, willingness
to help, availability, honesty, ability to instill confi-
Educational service quality consists of 5 dimensions, which are all significantly associated with satisfaction. Although other researchers have proposed a 5dimensional structure for service quality, the dimensions in this study are unique. Parasuraman et al proposed the 5 service quality dimensions of tangibles,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy
(Figure 2).16 The service quality instrument in this
study proposed a priori a 3-dimensional model consist-
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
Table 4. Stepwise Regression of Service Quality Dimensions with Satisfaction
Satisfaction Items
I am satisfied with the school’’s facilities.
I am satisfied that the school provided me a
high quality education.
I am satisfied with the quality of teaching.
I am satisfied with the extent of my intellectual
development since enrolling in this school.
I am satisfied with the faculty of this school.
I am satisfied with the administration of this
school.
I am satisfied with the School's curriculum.
Items combined
Faculty Faculty
Faculty
Resources Behavior Expertise Communication Administration
(R2)
(R2)
(R2)
(R2)
(R2)
0.12
0.01
0.28
0.04
0.08
0.01
0.28
0.02
0.02
0.39
0.07
0.27
0.03
0.01
0.01
0.06
0.45
0.02
0.01
0.03
0.02
0.56
0.02
0.29
0.04
0.01
0.07
0.04
0.47
0.01
0.03
0.08
Values shown are partial R-Square values from regressing service quality dimensions with individual satisfaction items.
Figures in bold indicate the dimension which explains the greatest portion of variance in responses toward the satisfaction
item in that row. Only significant relationships between service quality dimensions and satisfaction items are shown.
Service
Dimensions
In Literature
A Priori
Dimensions
Study
Dimensions
Tangibles
Resources
Resources
Reliability
Faculty Behavior
Faculty
Responsiveness
Faculty Expertise
Assurance
Faculty
Communication
Empathy
Administration
Administration
Figure 2. Dimensions of Educational Service Quality.
satisfy or dissatisfy service customers. It is important
that faculty members pay particular attention to how
they deal with these opportunities if they wish to develop good professional relationships with the students
and enhance overall satisfaction with the school.
dence, and respectful behavior. These attributes deal
with the one-to-one interactions between students that
determine faculty member/student relationships. In
services marketing, these interactions are called “moments of truth” where an opportunity exists to either
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American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2003; 67 (4) Article 108.
It is also not known whether this set of dimensions
of service quality is exhaustive. Although the model
explained 63% of student satisfaction with their education, there still may be other dimensions that have been
missed. For example, some researchers have argued for
a dimension that assesses the outcome of services.18
Educational service quality deals primarily with the
processes of education (eg, the manner in which it is
provided) rather than the outcomes (eg, skills developed, extent of learning). Another important dimension
of education, curriculum, was not addressed in the
ESQ. Although some dimensions indirectly address
issues associated with curriculum, the curriculum itself
was not directly assessed in the ESQ.
School administration was the next most important
determinant of student responses to the multi-item satisfaction instrument. School administration assessed
student perceptions of administration reliability, responsiveness, expertise, and other aspects of service.
Students receive extensive exposure to administration
in their fourth and final year of professional school because administration coordinates clerkships, oncampus experiences, and communications between the
school and students when they are off campus. This
gives the administration multiple opportunities to experience “moments of truth” with students and influence student satisfaction.
Faculty member communication followed school
administration in importance. Communication attributes deal with how faculty members set expectations of
students and respond to student efforts in a fair manner.
Faculty member communication is also important in
student satisfaction because it is essential in preventing
conflicts and establishing trust. Many student complaints about faculty members result from student perceptions that they have been treated unfairly.17 These
conflicts often result because faculty members and students differ about what is expected of students. When
expectations and consequences are not consistently
communicated to students through syllabi, policies,
grading, words, and actions, conflict is a likely result.
CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrated that the ESQ scale is a
valid and useful tool for assessing the quality of educational services. Student responses to the scale can be
used to identify sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with educational experiences. This research found
5 dimensions of educational service quality. Students
thought that all 5 dimensions were important in determining satisfaction with their education, but that faculty members’ interpersonal behavior was most important. The remaining dimensions in the order of importance that the students attributed to them were administration, resources, faculty member communication,
and faculty member expertise.
Faculty member expertise was the least important
determinant of student satisfaction with their educational experience. Faculty member expertise addresses
knowledge, currency of knowledge, and relevance of
what is taught. Although it may seem surprising that
students put least emphasis on faculty member expertise, this result may be situation specific. In this study,
students appeared to have fewer problems with faculty
member expertise than with faculty member behavior
and communication. Students gave 2 of the 3 faculty
member expertise items the highest ratings of all items
in the instrument. In a different setting or situation,
expertise could be a greater source of conflict and
therefore impact student satisfaction more.
Assessments of the final P-4 year are particularly
important for pharmacy schools to conduct because
these perceptions are the ones that students will take
with them after graduation. Although these perceptions
will probably change over time as students become
pharmacists and professional experiences reshape perceptions of the value of educational experiences, the
attitudes developed in the final year are likely to be
long lasting.
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