Relationship between Student Expectations, Perceptions, and Personal Characteristics in Integrated Technical Courses

The objective of this study is to analyse relationships between the characteristics of students attending an integrated technical course and their expectations and perceptions by using the SERVQUAL scale. A questionnaire was applied to the students in two municipalities based on a version adapted from the Servqual scale. A pre-test was performed with five students and the final sample had 249 respondents. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were the techniques used for data analysis. The results show that students of different school years, those who always attended public schools, those who were at the campus of Araranguá, those who intend to follow a career in their field of study, and mainly those intending to take college entrance exams, have different expectations and perceptions of the course quality. The present study concluded that taking the college entrance exam is the characteristic most strongly related to different levels of expectation and perception. However, the results differ partially from the revised literature.