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      Service Quality Satisfaction: Perceptions of Ghanaian Higher Education Students Learning at a Distance

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      research-article
        1 , , 2
      UnisaRxiv
      UNISA Press
      higher education, learning centres, service quality, SERVQUAL Theory
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            Abstract

            Assessing students’ satisfaction of service quality is vital to educational service providers. This qualitative study hence employed the SERVQUAL Theory to explore the perspectives of 30 distance learning students on the quality of services provided at the University of Ghana Learning Centres. The participants were purposively selected and engaged in in-depth qualitative interviews through a semi-structured interview guide. Our findings revealed varied satisfaction levels with the five dimensions of quality of service: reliability, assurance, responsiveness, tangibility, and empathy. The findings revealed that students’ perceptions of the tangibility and empathy dimensions were negative. We thus advocate leveraging the three dimensions perceived to be satisfying among students while ensuring improvements in the two other dimensions that elicited no satisfaction. Consequently, we offer recommendations framed by UNESCO that may be of interest to providers and managers of distance education programmes in similar learning centres.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            UnisaRxiv
            UNISA Press
            30 April 2021
            Affiliations
            [1 ] Department of Distance Education, School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education, University of Ghana, P. O. Box LG 31, Legon-Accra, Ghana
            [2 ] University of Ghana Learning Centres, School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education, University of Ghana, P. O. Box LG 31, Legon-Accra, Ghana
            Author notes
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4303-4863
            https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2602-1718
            Article
            10.25159/UnisaRxiv/000008.v1
            eadeeae3-2674-46e8-84d7-de5544681c1e

            This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

            History
            : 30 April 2021
            : 9 July 2021
            Funding
            N/A N/A

            The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
            Education
            higher education,learning centres,service quality,SERVQUAL Theory

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