THE MEASUREMENT OF SERVICE QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: AN EXAMPLE OF NAZILLI VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of service quality provided of higher education institutions and to research whether there are significant differences in the perception of service quality between genders, education status of students and their parents' education status. The outcome of this research with the example of Adnan Menderes University, Nazilli Vocational School in Aydın/Turkey has provided the higher education institutions with solutions to improve service quality to ensure students a decent learning environment which has an impact on their success to reach program goals, to provide businesses with skilled people and to differentiate itself from competition and therefore achieve reduction of complaints and customer loyalty. Research results also indicate that the gender of students, their education status and their parents' education status have an impact on their perception of service quality.
The service quality has been tested and evaluated using HEdPERF scale to expose and improve the current state with its 28 questions and significant differences have been found. The data was collected among 320 randomly picked students out of 2400 students stydying at Adnan Menderes University Vocational School and was analyzed with SPSS 21.