an empirical model of student satisfaction: case of pakistani public

Journal of Quality and Technology Management Volume VII, Issue II, December, 2011, Page 91 ‐ 114

AN EMPIRICAL MODEL OF STUDENT

SATISFACTION: CASE OF PAKISTANI PUBLIC SECTOR BUSINESS SCHOOLS

A. Ijaz1, S.M. Irfan2, S. Shahbaz2, M. Awan2, M. Sabir3

1Institute of Quality and Technology Management, University of the Punjab, Lahore – Pakistan

2COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan 3Department of Geography, University of the Punjab, New Campus, Lahore

ABSTRACT Quality is key determinant for customers before purchasing a product or availing any type of service and it also plays a significant role in measuring the performance of product/service and the organization as well. This issue has realized the organizations from manufacturing and service sector, how to compete and gain competitive edge in the market by delivering quality product or services as per customer requirements. These organizations had integrated quality management principles and quality tools and techniques to gain competitive edge. Education sector is also among the service sector and considered to be the back bone and major contributor in national and economic development. Quality education is also a challenge for the universities and also many of the universities around globe are putting their efforts to deliver quality of educational services to their customers to gain their satisfaction. In Pakistan, service sector is one of the rapidly growing sectors contributing more than 53% of GDP. To gain competitive edge these service organizations require knowledgeable and highly skilled management professionals to cope up with these challenges. This study aims to investigate the service quality of business schools in public sector and how these institutions are successful in gaining student satisfaction. A modified SERVQUAL instrument is used to evaluate the service quality of four business schools working under public sector universities based on student perceptions. Total 501 students from 4 public sector business schools participated in this study. Structure equation modeling was used to develop service quality and student satisfaction model. Results of this study indicate that business schools are successful in gaining student satisfaction.

An Empirical Model of Student Satisfaction: Case of Pakistani Public Sector Business Schools

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Keywords: SERVQUAL, Student satisfaction, Business schools, Structural equation model (SEM), Pakistan INTRODUCTION Quality has become an icon for the customers before purchasing any product or availing any service. Service sector is one of the rapidly growing sectors in most of the economies of the world and this trend can also be seen in Pakistan. According to statistics division of Pakistan (2010), service sector is contributing more than 53% of the total GDP. Service sector is also gaining importance like the manufacturing sectors, due to globalization and increased competitive environment among the local and global companies (Petruzzellis et al., 2006). Today the organizations are facing challenges from their customers and these challenges have created a cutthroat business environment which ultimately creates challenges for the managers to find the best and ways to meet the need and wants of their stakeholders. It has also set challenges for the universities to develop a human capital with the latest management knowledge and skills and enables students to become a change agent for the industry. Now the universities are making efforts to cope with the challenges of varied learning styles, cultural diversity, and changing student demands with more choices of study which includes; destinations, educational programs and study environment than before (Arambewela & Hall, 2009). Educational sector is an important sector which plays a significant role in the development of human capital and ultimately in the economic development of the country. Education sector has become an industry in many countries of the world especially in UK, Malaysia, U.A.E etc., and this factor is also influencing in other parts of the world especially the countries with tuition based systems (DeShields et al., 2005). Like the manufacturing and service organizations, concept of quality has also evolved among the educational institution and it helps to develop a competitive environment which ultimately raises the importance of measuring quality of services among the business schools (Gbadamosi et al., 2008).

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It had also been explored that universities starts realizing that education sector should be considered as a business like other service industries and they should be more focused on student expectations and perceptions. A number of top universities around the globe had opened their campuses in many of developing countries specially; Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, UAE etc. and some of the universities are making joint ventures with the local universities in developing countries in the form of dual degree programs or split degree programs. It has increased competition among the educational institutions and quality is the key parameter in order to improve performance and gain student satisfaction. Student satisfaction can be gained by delivering superior customer values and it had become essential in creating a sustainable advantage in this competitive international education market (Kotler & Fox, 1995). Student satisfaction has become a major challenge for the universities and it has been recognized that student satisfaction is the major source of competitive advantage and this satisfaction also leads towards student retention, attraction for new students and positive word of mouth communication, as well (Arambewela & Hall 2009). It has been recognized and reported in earlier studies that long term survival and success of the universities depending upon the quality of services and the effort made by them to achieve that distinguishes one university from other universities (Aly & Akpovi, 2001; Kanji et al., 1999). In some earlier studies it had been reported that universities were also implementing quality management principles and used these principles as a strategic tool to gain competitive edge (Montano and Utter, 1999; Swift, 1996) and improved performance (Kanji & Tambi, 1998). Now the concept of quality and customer satisfaction had been evolved in educational sector and got considerable attentions (Ana Brochado, 2009). These trends have also been seen in the developing countries like Pakistan. During the last one decay Higher education commission of Pakistan (HEC) had made revolutionary development in promoting higher education in Pakistan and currently, we have 132 universities in public and private sector. HEC is now focusing to promote quality education in the country and many universities had adopted quality management principles as a key to success and implemented ISO standards as a first step towards quality to excel.


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Today, organizations are facing new challenges set by the stakeholders and the competitive business environment due to globalization. Organizations requires highly skilled, knowledgeable and experienced managers that are able to deal with these issues and finding the best suitable ways to accelerate their organizations both at local as well as international level. Due to the expansion and growth in the service sector, business schools in Pakistan especially in public sector are facing mounting pressures from their stakeholders and their competitors from private sectors. It is need of the hour that public sector institutions had to make strategies and continuously monitor their education quality to make their customers, and stakeholders happy and gain strategic advantage over their competitors. Business schools plays a significant role to develop and train management specialists for the industry by integrating their curricula and benchmark with best business schools in the world and enables their student to lead their industry. The objective of this study is to evaluate the student perceptions about the service quality of business schools in the public sector universities. Secondly, a service quality and student satisfaction model will be developed by using structural equation modeling (SEM) to observe the relationship among them. LITERATURE REVIEW Service Quality The concept of quality had been evolved from “excellence” to “value”, to “conformance to specification”, and to “meeting and exceeding customer expectations” (Reeves & Bendnar, 1994, p-441). The first two definitions are quite close to assess and measure the quality of product or services, whereas the third is more appropriate to assess the quality of the product (Pariseau & McDaniel, 1997). Quality issues related to measure the quality of services was a subject to a large number of investigation by the practitioners and academicians over past 25 years due to its intangible and complex nature (Prabha et al. 2010). Prabha et al. (2010) further explored that studies on measuring the service quality of educational institutions had also been the focus of increased attentions during the last couple of years due the tough competition among the educational institutions and the demand for excellence in education. Due to the abstract nature of services as compared to products, measurement of


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service quality and to its characteristics was also difficult and complicated task for the academicians and practitioners (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Carman, 1990). However, service quality had been frequently studied in the service marketing literature and measuring the service quality and development of an instrument had been an issue of discussion (Parasuraman et al., 1985; 1988). Service quality was also considered as to what extent a service is adequate to meet the customer’s need and wants (Lewis & Mitchell, 1990; Dotchin & Oakland, 1994). Service quality may be conceptualized as customers or consumers overall feeling about the superiority or inferiority of the services they received from the service providers (Zeithaml et al., 1990). Most commonly referred definition of service quality is the difference between customer expectations which a customer will receive from a service provider and the perceptions about the services being received by customer from the service provider (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Grönroos, 2001). Quality, performance and satisfaction are considered to be the key factors and these factors are interrelated in a causal relationship or some time these three factors are used as synonymously due to the similarity in meaning (Cronin et al., 2000; Bitner and Hubert, 1994). Still there is no precise definition of service quality in educational point of view however, according to O’Neill and Palmer (2004, p: 42), service quality in educational setup had been defined as “the difference between what a student expects to receive and his/her perceptions of actual delivery”. Service Quality Models and SERVQUAL The first instrument to measure the service quality was developed by Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry (1985). This instrument was comprised of five different gaps and due to this reason this is also known as gap model and later this model was refined by Parasuraman et al. (1991) and SERVQUAL instrument was based on gap 5. SERVQUAL based on gap 5, comprised of 5 service quality dimensions based on 22 items; tangible (4 items), reliability (4 items), responsiveness (4 items), assurance (5 items) and empathy (5 items). According to Buttle (1995), these three researcher and academicians since 1985, further developed, propagated and promoted this instrument through a series of publications by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml. Till now a number of service quality model were presented to measure the service quality in different service environments. A study conducted by Nitin Seth et al., (2005), reported 19


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service quality models used till now to measure the service quality. These models are given in the table below.


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Table 1: Service Quality Models SERVICE QUALITY MODEL AUTHOR 1) Technical and functional quality model Grönroos, 1984 2) GAP model (Parasuraman et al., 1985) 3) Attribute service quality model (Haywood-Farmer, 1988) 4) Synthesized model of service quality (Brogowiczet al., 1990) 5) Performance only model (SERVPERF) (Cronin and Taylor, 1992) 6) Ideal value model of service quality (Mattsson, 1992)

7) Evaluated performance and normed quality model (Teas, 1993)

8) IT alignment model (Berkley and Gupta, 1994) 9) Attribute and overall affect model (Dabholkar, 1996)

10) Model of perceived service quality and satisfaction (Spreng and Mackoy, 1996)

11) PCP attribute model (Philip and Hazlett, 1997)

12) Retail service quality and perceived value model (Sweeney et al., 1997)

13) Service quality, customer value and customer satisfaction model (Oh, 1999)

14) Antecedents and mediator model (Dabholkar et al., 2000) 15) Internal service quality model (Frost and Kumar, 2000

16) Internal service quality DEA model (Soteriou and Stavrinides, 2000)

17) Internet banking model (Broderick and Vachirapornpuk, 2002)

18) IT-based model (Zhuet et al., 2002) 19) Model of e-service quality (Santos, 2003) (Santos, 2003) Source: Nitin Seth et al. (2005) However, “SERVQUAL” model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985, 1988) were the most commonly used model and had been widely used in almost all the service organizations (Riadh Lidhari, 2009; Smith et al., 2007; Lee & Tai, 2008; Brochado, 2009) and hundreds of unpublished articles using SERVQUAL, conference proceedings and in online journals. Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction


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Customer satisfaction and service quality has become an important topic of discussion among the academicians and researchers for the last couple of decades and this trend can also been seen in higher education also (Avdjieva & Wilson, 2002, Barnes, 2006). Superiority of the service quality is strongly dependent on customer satisfaction which can be measured from customer expectations and perceptions (Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Christou & Sigala, 2002; Ekinci, 2004). Students are the primary customers for an educational institutions and their satisfaction will leads towards loyalty, retention and positive word of mouth (Arambewela & John Hall, 2009; Mavondo et al., 2004; Helgesen & Nesset, 2007). Banwet and Datta (2003) believed that customer satisfaction creates loyalty, whereas satisfied students were attracted to attend another course/module or another higher degree from the same university. Number of definitions about the satisfaction exists in service and consumer marketing literature. According to Oliver (1997), satisfaction is a pleasurable fulfillment which means that consumption of services was according to their needs and wants and thus fulfillment causes pleasure. It may be consumer sense about the consumption of services according to customer parameters against pleasure versus displeasure (Oliver, 1999). Student satisfaction is still a complex phenomenon and it has different dimensions (Marzo-Navarro et al., 2005a, b; Richardson, 2005). According to Elliott and Shin (2002. p:198), student satisfaction is defined as; “the favorability of a student’s subjective evaluation of the various outcomes and experiences associated with education. Student satisfaction is being shaped continually by repeated experiences in campus life”. On the basis of literature the following six hypotheses were developed: H01: Tangibles has a no positive effect on service quality of the business

schools H11: Tangibles has a positive effect on service quality of the business

schools H02: Reputation has no positive effect on service quality of the business

schools H12: Reputation has a positive effect on service quality of the business

schools H03: Cooperation and support has no positive effect on service quality

of the business schools


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H13: Cooperation and support has positive effect on service quality of the business schools

H04: Reliability has a positive effect on service quality of the business schools

H14: Reliability has a positive effect on service quality of the business schools

H05: Responsiveness has no positive effect on service quality of the business schools

H15: Responsiveness has a positive effect on service quality of the business schools

H06: Service quality of business schools has no positive effect on student satisfaction

H16: Service quality of business schools has a positive effect on student satisfaction

METHODOLOGY This study is empirical in nature and the results were based on assessment of the respondents. For this purpose a questionnaire was designed using modified SERVQUAL model to measure the service quality of business schools in public sector and how the quality of services will helpful to gain student satisfaction. Questionnaire for this study was comprised of 52 questions, which are further subdivided in to 6 constructs out of which; 5 constructs used to measure service quality and the 6th constructs used to measure the student satisfaction about the overall service quality of the business school. These constructs are tangibles (15 items), reputation (11 items), cooperation and support (8 items), reliability (8 items) responsiveness (6 items) and student satisfaction (5 items). The responses were measured on a five point Likert scale [5] for excellent and [1] for poor. The population of this study comprises all student studying graduate and undergraduate level in 4 public sector universities in the city Lahore. Personal efforts were made to collect the data. This city is also known as hub of educational institutions. A total of 550 questionnaires were distributed among students and a total 501 questionnaire were selected for the analysis and the remaining 49 questionnaire were rejected due to incomplete response. Therefore, it represents a very good rate of 91% of the total population. The data was entered into SPSS 16.0 and Amos 16.0 was used to develop a structural equation model to draw inferences. Reliability of the data was checked using Cronbach Alpha which provides a value of 0.956 is more than the


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acceptable value of 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978; Hair et al., 2006; Zikmund, 1998) and a value ranges between 0 and 1 and the value close to 1 provides more reliability (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). As reliability of the data plays a significant role in analyzing the results. Demographics of the data are reported in table 2. The participants of this study are the male and female students. Male respondents were 299, thus representing 60% of the total population, whereas the female respondents were 202 and thus representing 40% of the total population. The students were from three different disciplines; BBA were 261 representing 52% of the total population, MBA were 167 representing 33% of the total population and there were only 73 students from MS and representing only 15% of the total population. Majority of the Student population were between 18 to 22 years of age group and only 8% of the population was above 22 years of age.

Table 2: Demographics of the Study

Gender Frequency Percentage Discipline Frequency Percentage Male 299 60% BBA 261 52% Female 202 40% MBA 167 33% Total 501 100% MS 73 15% Total 501 100% Age Institution 18-20 263 52% COMSATS 211 42%

21-22 197 39% Punjab

University 176 35%

23-24 27 5% LCWU 65 13% above 24 14 3% GCU 49 10% Total 501 100% Total 501 100% Year 1st year 175 35% 2nd year 149 30% 3rd year 106 21% 4th year 71 14% Total 501 100% Students from four different public sector universities were selected the highest number of students were 42% from COMSATS, 35% from Punjab University, 13% students were from Lahore College Women University, where as 10% respondents were from Government College University. Highest numbers of respondents, 35%were the student of first year, 30%


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respondents were second year students, 21% students were in third year and 14% students were in fourth year. Tangible: First service quality construct is tangible which includes the infrastructure, facilities and the physical structure of the organization. This construct includes 15 items representing the building, playgrounds, class room structure, library, transport, hostel, mosque, cleanliness, and computer labs. The Cronbach alpha for this construct is 0.870 providing an adequate value. These items were labeled as Tan1 to Tan15. Reputation: It represents the overall goodwill of the institution among students and at national level. This factor consists of 11 items representing institution ranking, highly skilled faculty, strong curricula, internationally recognized degree, and student acceptability in the job market. These 11 items were measured on a five point Likert scale, 1=poor to 5= excellent. Cronbach alpha for this construct is 0.856. Items of this constructs were further labeled as Rep1 to Rep15. Cooperation and Support: Third factor of this study was the cooperation and support provided to the students during their studies. It includes faculty and institutional concern for the students and educational environment that adds value to his/her learning. This construct consists of 8 items and the Cronbach alpha for this construct was 0.856. Items of this constructs were labeled as CaS1 to CaS8. Reliability: This factor represents the ability to deliver or perform services consistently and accurately to win the customer satisfaction and increased quality of services. This construct consists of 8 factors. The Cronbach alpha for this factor was 0.852 and items were labeled as Rel1 to Rel8. Responsiveness: This factor represents the willingness of the organization to facilitate the customers by delivering timely services. The Cronbach alpha for this study was 0.863 and it consists of 6 items and these items were coded as Resp1 to Resp6. Student satisfaction: The final construct consists of 5 items used to measure the student satisfaction in terms of student retention attraction, job assurance (acceptability of degree), increased learning, reputation and positive word of mouth. Cronbach alpha for this construct was 0.854. This


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construct is used as dependent variable and 5 items used in this construct was labeled as Sat1 to Sat5.


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Table 3: Variable Used In the Study

Latent Variable Measured

Variable Measured Variables SRW Cronbach

Alpha Tan 1 building and play grounds 0.305 Tan 2 adequate Library facilities 0.253 Tan 3 Hostel facilities 0.319 Tan 4 Wi-Fi services for students 0.507 Tan 5 Multimedia facilities in each room 0.316 Tan 6 Cleanliness in the campus 0.480 Tan 7 Mosque and prayer area 0.399 Tan 8 Parking facilities 0.413 Tan 9 Transport facilities 0.580 Tan 10 Canteen, photocopy and book shop 0.508 Tan 11 Computer labs and other labs 0.598 Tan 12 Well equipped class rooms 0.540 Tan 13 Easily accessible location 0.606 Tan 14 waiting facility for discussion/guests 0.612

Tangibles

Tan 15 Efficient mode of information sharing 0.587

0.870

Rep1 Highly skilled and renowned faculty 0.542 Rep2 Among Top universities in Pakistan 0.650 Rep3 Strong in Research and development 0.568 Rep4 Add values in student abilities 0.663 Rep5 Globally accepted degree 0.539 Rep6 Curricula meet industry demand 0.495 Rep7 Credit hours can be transferred 0.485 Rep8 skilled and educated supporting staff 0.685 Rep9 Seminars & Talks from industry experts 0.649 Rep10 High job market for graduates 0.635

Reputation

Rep11 Scholarships & financial assistance 0.618

0.856

CaS1 Faculty is concerned about their students 0.533 CaS2 Supporting staff is willing to help 0.661 CaS3 Faculty helps to resolve student issues 0.558 CaS4 Supporting staff takes care of student 0.694 CaS5 Management concerns for student 0.735 CaS6 Progress is communicated to parents 0.819 CaS7 Provides healthy environment 0.806

Cooperation and Support

CaS8 Job enhancement cell 0.796

0.856

Rel1 Classes and exams are properly scheduled 0.360 Rel2 Industrial visit to increase learning 0.547 Rel3 Results and exams are at scheduled time 0.647 Rel4 Faculty evaluation system 0.404 Rel5 Open house to attract with parents 0.582 Rel6 Timely delivery of lectures 0.635 Rel7 Fair student evaluation system 0.810

Reliability

Rel8 Degrees /convocation at scheduled time 0.637

0.852

Resp1 Feedback mechanism 0.536 Resp2 Complaints are resolved efficiently 0.703 Resp3 Student matters or issues are responded 0.722 Resp4 Changes in schedule are communicated 0.783 Resp5 Teachers are easily accessible 0.822

Responsiveness

Resp6 Management in contact with parents 0.708

0.863

Satisfaction (Cronbach alpha =) Sat1 Loyalty 0.609 Sat2 retention 0.807 Sat3 Job assurance 0.822

Satisfaction

Sat4 Increased learning 0.762

0.854


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Sat5 reputation, word of mouth 0.537 To test the developed hypothesis of the proposed service quality of business school and student satisfaction regression analysis may be used. However, it is evident from the literature that structure equation modeling or latent variable model is a useful technique (Hair et al., 2008) and considered to be more powerful in investigating the casual relationships among the categorical variables (Bollen, 1989; Bollen & Long, 1993). Therefore, for this study SEM technique was used to test the hypothesis. The tested theoretical model of this study is presented in figure 1 using structure equation modeling (SEM) techniques through AMOS 16.0 and the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) was used (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 2004). The sample size for this study was 501 records and which is an acceptable range of 100 to 200 for using MLE procedures and the number of observations required for each parameter estimated should be between 5 and 10 observations (Hair et al., 2008). Therefore, all the parameters were met before running the SEM model for this study. According to Bollen (1989), multiple indices should be used as it is possible for a model to be adequate on one fit index but may be inadequate on many others. We examined normed chi-square test, comparative fit index (CFI), goodness of fit index (GFI) and the root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA) as suggested by (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 2004). A non-significant chi-square (i.e., p > 0.05) indicates that the proposed model is an adequate presentation of the entire set of relationships. The most flexible acceptance value of the normed chi-square must not be higher than 5, but to be more cautious it should not go above 3 (Pedhazur & Pedhazur-Schmelkin, 1991). Significant values of the above parameters are also stated in table 4.

Table 4: Level of Significance for Model Fit Indices Index Value range Author Normed chi-square (CMIN/df)

As low as 2 and as high as 5 Pedhazur & Pedhazur-Schmelkin, 1991, Marsh & Hocevar, 1985;

Goodness of fit index (GFI)

Less than 1 and equal to 1 representing a very good fit

Jöreskog and Sörbom (1984)

Comparative fit index (CFI)

Values ranges from 0 to 1 and close to 1 indicated a well fit

Bentler, 1990; Hu & Bentler, 1999

Root mean square error approximation

Less than 0.5 close fit and less than 0.08 reasonable

Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Byrne, 2001


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(RMSEA) approximation The path diagram of the propped service quality and student satisfaction is represented in figure 1. The test for goodness of fit of the proposed model for service quality of business schools and student satisfaction is quite satisfactory. The values of the chi-square is 5851.730, degree of freedom is 1319, p-value is .000 indicating that specified model is correct and the departure of the data from the model is significant at the .05 level. Values of the indices of path diagram of the proposed model for goodness of fit are given in the table 5.

Table 5: Goodness of fit index for the given model

Index Values for the proposed Normed chi-square (CMIN/df) 4.413 Goodness of fit index (GFI) .744 Comparative fit index (CFI) .866 Root mean square error approximation (RMSEA) 0.065 Results reported in above table 5 are evident that the entire proposed model had achieved the flexible level of normed chi-square, goodness of fit index, comparative fit index and root mean square error approximation and our results are falling within the described range of values as stated in table 4. Therefore, we can say that our proposed model provides a reasonable fit.


Tangibles

tan1

e1

.30tan2

e2

.25tan3

e3

.32tan4

e4

.51tan5

e5

.32tan6

e6

.48tan7

e7

.40tan8

e8

.41tan9

e9

.58tan10

e10

.51tan11

e11

.60tan12

e12

.54tan13

e13

.61tan14

e14

.61tan15

e15

.59

Reputation

rep11e26

.62

rep10e25

.64

rep9e24

.65rep8e23

.69rep7e22

.48rep6e21.50

rep5e20 .54

rep4e19.66

rep3e18.57

rep2e17

.65

rep1e16

.54

Cooperation

cas8e34

.80

cas7e33

.81cas6e32

.82cas5e31

.73cas4e30 .69cas3e29 .56

cas2e28.66

cas1e27.53

Reliability

rel8e42rel7e41rel6e40rel5e39rel4e38rel3e37rel2e36rel1e35

.64.81.63.58

.40.65.55.36

Responsiveness

resp6

e48

.71

resp5

e47

.82

resp4

e46

.78

resp3

e45

.72

resp2

e44

.70

resp1

e43

.54

Service QualityStudent Satisfaction

sat1

e49

.61

sat2

e50

.81

sat3

e511

.82

sat4

e52

.76.84

.75

.77

.85 .79

sat5

e53

.54e54

.86

e512

e513

e514

e515 e516

e517

Figure 1: Path Diagram for the proposed model

• The first service quality construct is tangible which is comprised of

15 items and all items provide a positive and direct effect on service quality like; institution building and grounds (0.305*0.75=0.23). The factors like transport facilities for the students (0.58*0.75=0.435), waiting facilities and discussion rooms for students (0.612*0.75=0.459) and similarly all other items of this construct has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in Pakistan. The standardized regression weight for this construct is 0.75. Therefore, our null hypothesis H01 is rejected and thus hypothesis H11 is accepted that student perceive that tangibles has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in public sector of Pakistan.

• Second is reputation and was comprised of 11 items and all items provide a positive and direct effect on service quality like; high ranked university in the Pakistan (0.650*0.84=0.55). The factors like skilled and educated supporting staff (0.685*0.84=0.58), scholarships & financial assistance for student (0.618*0.84=0.52) and similarly all other items of this constructs has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in Pakistan. The standardized regression weight for this construct is 0.84.

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Therefore, our null hypothesis H02 is rejected and thus hypothesis H12 is accepted that student perceive that reputation of the institution in the market as well as among students has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in public sector of Pakistan.

• Third service quality construct is cooperation and support which comprised of 8 items and all items provide a positive and direct effect on service quality like; management had a great concern for their students (0.735*0.77=0.57). The factors like provides healthy environment to students (0.806*0.77=0.62), supporting staff takes care of student (0.694*0.77=0.54) and similarly all other items of this construct has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in Pakistan. The standardized regression weight for this construct is 0.75. Therefore, our null hypothesis H03 is rejected and thus hypothesis H13 is accepted that student perceive that reputation of the institution has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in public sector of Pakistan.

• Fourth service quality construct is reliability which is comprised of 8 items and all items provide a positive and direct effect on service quality like; Fair student evaluation system (0.810*0.85=0.69). The factors like results and exams are at scheduled time (0.65*0.85=0.55), Degrees and convocation at scheduled time (0.64*0.85=0.54) and similarly all other items of this constructs has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in Pakistan. The standardized regression weight for this construct is 0.85. Therefore, our null hypothesis H04 is rejected and thus hypothesis H14 is accepted that student perceive that reliability of the university system has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in public sector of Pakistan.

• Fifth service quality construct is responsiveness which is comprised of 6 items and all items provide a positive and direct effect on service quality like; Teachers are easily accessible (0.82*0.79=0.65). The factors like changes in schedule are communicated to students (0.78*0.79=0.62), complaints are resolved efficiently (0.70*0.79=0.55) and similarly all other constructs has a positive effect on service quality of business schools in Pakistan. The standardized regression weight for this construct is 0.79. Therefore, our null hypothesis H05 is rejected and thus hypothesis H15 is accepted that responsiveness has a positive


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effect on service quality of business schools in public sector of Pakistan.

• Finally, service quality of business schools has a positive impact on student satisfaction and regression weight is 0.86. superior quality of services to their students will helpful for the institutions in gaining student loyalty with the institution, causes to attract or retain the existing students for another degree, and finally causes for positive word of mouth. Therefore, our null hypothesis H06 is rejected and thus hypothesis H16 is accepted that positive service quality leads towards student satisfaction.

Table 6 provides information regarding correlation between the five service quality dimensions namely; tangibles, reputation, cooperation and support, reliability, responsiveness and student satisfaction. Averages of all the constructs were calculated and then run the correlation among the constructs representing the independent variables. There is a significant correlation among all the constructs with student satisfaction and also among each other at 0.01 significant levels. However, highest correlation between satisfaction and reputation of the institution which is 61.7%, which indicates reputation of the institution plays a significant role while selecting the institution for study and it also has a significant impact on student satisfaction while finding their jobs after graduation. The weakest correlation among student satisfaction and responsiveness is 52.5%, however, the correlation is positive among them and the p-value among the variables is 0.000 indicating a significant correlation among them at 1% level of significant. It is also observed that p-value between all the variables is 0.000 indicates, and positive correlation among all the variables exists.

Table 6: Correlation among service quality dimensions and student satisfaction

VARIABLES MEAN S.D TAN REP CAS REL RESP SAT TAN 3.5464 .59109 1 REP 3.6727 .59916 .523** 1 CAS 3.5044 .78356 .515** .616** 1 REL 3.68278 .635401 .502** .591** .544** 1 RESP 3.3756 .84049 .457** .524** .575** .662** 1 SAT 3.6542 .73636 .532** .617** .587** .616** .525** 1 ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).


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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Although measuring the quality of services based on customer perceptions is a complex task, however, to some extent we can get a little understanding about the quality of services provided by the service providers. The concept of quality has also been recognized in the services sector and now the universities are also concentrating and making efforts to gain student satisfaction by delivering quality of teaching and non-teaching services (Petruzzellis et al., 2006). The above findings shows that currently, the business schools working under the public sector institutions are providing better quality of educational services and are also successful in gaining student satisfaction. Majority of these public sector institutions have a very rich history and management graduates from these institutions have a better job opportunity in the market. As majority of the managers working on high profile jobs were graduated from these institutions which are also helpful in making the repute of these institutes in the market. Public sector institutions have another sustainable advantage that these institutes have a very good infrastructure like; their own hostel buildings, mosque, plays grounds, libraries and transport facility, where as these facilities are missing in the private institutes to some extent. Secondly, highly skilled and well known faculty is working in public sector institutions. Major reason of student satisfaction in the public sector institutions is due to their reputation, availability of scholarships, and low fees as compared to private institutions. Due to this reason public sector institutions are successful to attract the best students which ultimately help to enhance institutional recognition and their satisfaction. However, these institutions have to make continuous efforts to enhance quality of educational services update the curricula according to the local industry requirements and also the global acceptability. These Institutions need to develop and implement quality standards and system and continuously monitor it in order to increase the quality of education and gain competitive edge on rapidly growing institutes in private sector. This study developed six hypotheses, and the results of our studies through structural equation modeling (SEM) show that students’ perceive that public sector business schools are providing better quality of services to the student and secondly, the service quality of these institutions is helpful in gaining student satisfaction in terms of student loyalty with the institution, student attraction, positive word of mouth, image building and student


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recognition both at local level as well as international level. Satisfaction with service quality guarantees the students in increased student learning confidence (McCollough & Gremler, 1999). Earlier studies reveal that student satisfaction has a positive impact on student loyalty and their findings were also similar to those finding in service marketing literature (Cronin & Taylor 1992, 1994; Sweeney & Soutar 2001). This study is aimed only at public sector institutions and the selected institutions are considered to be the best business schools in Pakistan and these institutions were ranked between 1 to 10 positions as notified by higher education commission of Pakistan. Results of this study shows that students perceives that service quality dimensions like tangibles, cooperation and support, responsiveness, reputation, and reliability had a significant positive impact on service quality and thus these parameters leads towards students satisfaction. This study was conducted at a local level and only few public sector universities business schools were considered in Pakistan. Due to shortage of time sample size was not so large, therefore the results of this study cannot be generalized. However, a more comprehensive study can be conducted by taking a larger sample size and including all the educational institutions in the country to develop a comprehensive service quality and student satisfaction model. REFERENCES: Aly, N. and Akpovi, J. (2001). Total quality management in California

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an empirical model of student satisfaction: case of pakistani public

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