Perception of service quality and satisfaction in higher education: Perspective of Turkish students in Malaysian universities

This article presents a gap analysis by measuring the perception and expectation of service quality in higher education from the perspective of Turkish students in Malaysian universities. This article seeks to understand the phenomenon among Turkish students to change their preference from studying in universities in the West to those in the East, particularly Malaysia. In addition, this article seeks to assess their perceptions of service quality in the new environment based on a modified service quality (SERVQUAL) instrument to measure tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. After conducting a pilot study, the instrument was administered to 41 Turkish students who were selected based on stratified sampling on the top five public universities in Malaysia. The analysis started with descriptive analysis followed by factor and reliability analyses. Single mean t-tests were then conducted to assess the significance of the gaps based on all the 35 items of the modified SERVQUAL. The study uncovered that all of the items and constructs measuring the gaps are significantly negative with assurance representing the construct with the highest negative gap (-1.19), followed by empathy (-1.16), tangible (-1.14), reliability (-1.13) and responsiveness (-1.12).