Influence of University Service Quality on Student Satisfaction and Loyalty in Bangladesh

Evaluating the service quality of higher educational institutions in Bangladesh has become crucial to ensure continuous improvement and strategy development for tertiary education sector. The present study has aimed to investigate the influence of higher education service quality dimensions on student satisfaction and student loyalty. Moreover, the study also tests the mediating impact of university reputation and external prestige between university service quality and satisfaction and loyalty.  The research work has shown the performance of selected public universities in higher education service quality dimensions. Data has been collected through a structured questionnaire from a sample of 390 graduate and undergraduate students of two public universities of Bangladesh. The study reflects that the performance on service quality dimensions of selected public universities is not satisfactory. The results of the study have shown that Teaching, Support services, Library and lab facilities and internationalization have significant influence on student satisfaction except Administrative service and Hostel facilities. Teaching, Administrative services, Library and lab facilities and Internationalization have significant influence on student Loyalty. The mediating analysis has shown that student satisfaction partially mediates between service quality and student loyalty. The results of the study have also indicated that university reputation and external prestige partially mediate between service quality and student satisfaction and loyalty. The previous studies which measure service quality of Bangladeshi higher educational institutions have applied SERVQUAL model which is not absolutely suitable for an educational institution. However, this study has applied higher education service quality model which has been uniquely developed to measure service quality of higher educational institutions.