Servcie Quality in Hei Student View Point

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

MANCHESTER BUSINESS SCHOOL

Service Quality in

Higher Education:

The students’ viewpoint

A dissertation submitted to the University of Manchester

for the degree of Bachelor of Science in the Faculty of

Humanities

May 2012

DANIEL JAKE BEAUMONT

BSc (Honours) in Management

7408488

Supervisor: Dr Anna Goatman

Statement of Originality

This dissertation is my own original work and has not been

submitted for any assessment or award at the University

of Manchester or any other university.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Anna Goatman for her invaluable

input and phenomenal support throughout the process of

completing this dissertation.

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Abstract

In light of the imminent rise in tuition fees, university funding cuts and fears of

declining student numbers, gaining a sustainable competitive advantage in the higher

education sector is at the forefront of many universities’ agendas. In what can be

categorised as an extremely intangible service sector, one way that a university can

differentiate their service offering from the competition is through the provision of

excellent service quality. This study investigates perceptions of service quality at the

University of Manchester, collecting viewpoints from Undergraduate students from

different academic year groups.

The research was gathered through the use of focus groups as the primary data

collection method, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative techniques to

triangulate the methodology and increase the credibility of findings. By using

Importance-Performance Analysis to examine the data, the findings indicate that

perceptions of different service quality characteristics are complex, varying in terms

of importance and performance, whilst also displaying disparity between different

academic year groups. Despite this, a set of ‘core’ characteristics has been

uncovered, which all students deemed important to their...