Service Quality and Students’ Satisfaction in Higher Education Institutions: Nepali Students’ Experiences and Perceptions

Service quality in higher education has become a topic of growing interest in recent years. As a competition among higher education institutions around the world has increased, there has been a growing focus on providing high-quality services to students in order to attract and retain them. Thus, it is required to evaluate their satisfaction on the basis of service quality provided by higher education institutions. This study examines students’ satisfaction on service quality of Prithvi Narayan Campus (PNC), Pokhara. Thus, the main objective of the study is to analyse the major influencing factors of non-academic aspects of service quality, to measure the relationship of non-academic aspects of service quality with students’ satisfaction, and to analyse the impact of non-academic aspects on students’ satisfaction on service quality. Using the multi-phase sampling technique, both descriptive and inferential statistic was used to meet the objectives of this study. The overall students’ satisfaction towards the service quality provided by PNC is more than average. The study concludes that there is a low degree of positive correlation between non-academic aspects of service quality and students’ satisfaction. For non-academic aspects of service quality, only extra-curricular activities show a statistically significant impact on students’ satisfaction.


INTRODUCTION
Service quality in higher education has become a topic of increasing importance due to its impact on students' satisfaction, retention, and overall institutional reputation.The provision of high-quality service is crucial for educational institutions as they strive to meet the diverse needs and expectations of their students.According to Parasuraman et al. (1991), service quality in the higher education context refers to the extent to which educational institutions meet or exceed students' expectations across various dimensions, such as effective teaching, learning resources, administrative support, and the facilities provided in the academic instructions.Ensuring service quality is not only essential for attracting prospective students, but also it is for fostering student engagement and success throughout their academic journey.
Among the universities of Nepal, Tribhuvan University is considered to be the largest university in terms of student enrolment and infrastructure available for students.Prithvi Narayan Campus (PNC), the largest constituent campus of Tribhuvan University, the campus is offering various academic programs in multidisciplinary fields.Thus, this paper attempts to to find out the specific factors that are necessary for students' satisfaction towards various academic programs.In this connection, the students' experiences and perceptions towards service quality have been addressed by answering the following research questions: What are the major influencing factors of nonacademic aspects of service quality?How do non-academic aspects of service quality influence students' satisfaction?What are the experiences and perceptions of students towards satisfaction on service quality?To answer these questions, the study attempts to analyse students' experiences and perceptions towards their satisfaction on service quality of those students who are enrolled in the semester-based programs of PNC.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Since quality can mean different things to different individuals, it can be challenging to describe.A product or service will not always be perceived the same by the customers in the same way.According to several viewpoints, such as judgment, product, user, value, or manufacturing standpoint, quality can be characterized (Evans, 2011).The quality of a product cannot be described from the judgment perspective, yet it is possible to identify it when one sees it.The user viewpoint focuses on how a customer's needs are addressed.
According to Evans (2011), citing the American Society for Quality (ASQ), quality is the "totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy given needs."Quality can be defined more succinctly as the capacity to meet or surpass consumer expectations.These two definitions are drawn from the above discussed product and user perspectives.
The objective of instructive organizations all over the planet is to offer great schooling, both hypothetically and basically.The establishments' endeavours incorporate, in addition to other things, giving or making a case to giving reasonable and wonderful foundations, recruiting qualified educators, and overseeing viable noneducating staff.Students who at last utilize the administrations presented by the universities assess the nature of training in light of their perspective, featuring general qualities and deficiencies that are then used to check the presentation of a particular college.One of the most pivotal variables to consider while surveying an establishment's standing is the means by which students view the nature of schooling it gives.A student discernment is characterized as a person "contemplations, convictions, and sentiments" relating to the "people, circumstances, and occasions" (Schunk & Meece, 2012, p. 11).The analysts proceeded to say that self-discernment and social insight are the two sorts of insights that happen in the homeroom.The thought that students' discernments ought to consider the climate in the study hall as well as the climate at the "divisions, workforce, and establishment both genuinely and mentally" has as of late been put out by researchers (Jawaid et al. 2019, p. 417).In this sense, in-class exercises as well as offclass academic happenings fall inside the domain of understudies' discernment.Academic requests on understudies' discernment date back to the turn of 21 hundred years; in other words, almost thirty years have passed since the analysts underscored that the methodical request on quality in advanced education ought to be seen from students' discernment (Aldridge & Rowley, 1998;Schunk & Meese, 2012).As expressed by the different researchers along this line, students' data is significant "to uncover examples of understudy fulfilment" (Mazelan et al., 2016, p. 76).
According to Weerasinghe and Fernando (2017), "Understudies' fulfilment can be characterized as a short -term disposition coming about because of an assessment of understudies' instructive experience, administrations and offices" (pp.533-534).Students' fulfilment in higher education alludes to their sensation of happiness with the nature of instructive encounters and administrations accommodated them by their colleges.Nauffal (2009) analysed the fulfilment of 1,470 students at seven public and confidential Lebanese colleges with their general involvement with their colleges.She observed that students were by and large happy with the nature of training gave by their colleges to them.Nasser et al. (2008) uncovered those 870 students at Notre Lady College, a coeducational Lebanese Catholic higher education institution were for the most part happy with the college administrations conveyed to them.Kajenthiran and Karunanithy (2015) explored the connection between administration quality and students' fulfilment for 200 students at two confidential outside higher education institutions in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.It was tracked down that assistance quality, especially the elements of confirmation and responsiveness, affected students' fulfilment.Osman and Saputra (2019) analysed the impact of administration quality on students' fulfilment for 310 fourth-year business students at various confidential higher education institutions in Bangladesh.They uncovered that help quality did not impact students' fulfilment.Dib and Alnazer (2013) tried to decide the impact of administration quality on students' fulfilment for 170 undergraduate and postgraduate students' at higher education institutions in Syria.They found that assistance quality affects students' fulfilment.Truong et al. (2016) tried to distinguish the effect of administration quality on students' fulfilment for 463 students at private schools in Vietnam.The investigation discovered that all components of administration quality, including substance, dependability, responsiveness, and sympathy, added agreeable to students.Baniya (2016) expected to concentrate on the impact of administration quality on students' fulfilment for 241 undergraduate and graduate business organization studentss at Kathmandu College in Nepal.It was tracked down that help quality impacted students' fulfilment with sympathy and responsiveness as the basic elements contributing most agreeable to students.
From the above literature reviews, it is concluded that this study utilizes nonacademic aspect of service quality as the set of independent variables and students' satisfactions as dependent variables.Here, higher education refers to the dimensions and components of quality that are not directly connected to the academic or educational experience offered by the institution as non-academic aspects of service quality.These aspects focus on the overall experience, support services, and facilities that contribute to students' satisfaction, well-being, and holistic development.

RESEARCH METHODS
Descriptive and analytical research designs are used in this study.The quantitative nature of data has been used, which is intended to conduct survey on bachelor's and master's degree level students who are enrolled in the semester-based programs at PNC.Therefore, the population of this study is all the students studying in semesters-based Bachelor's and Master's degree programs, which is 2157 as of 25 April 2024.The sample size of the study is 197 students.Using Yamane's (1967) equation formula, the study has come up with a table for determining the sample size for a given population for easy reference.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Results
Table 1 shows mean and SD for each item in service quality dimensions, each dimension as a whole, and all dimensions combined.The dimension of involvement in social services received the highest rating (Mean=3.31,SD=.99), followed by services of non-academic staff's dimension (Mean=3.15,SD=.99), extra-curricular activities dimension (Mean=3.14,SD=1.01), services of canteen dimension (Mean=3.11,SD=0.99), and first-aid services dimension (Mean=2.86,SD=0.91).The overall mean score for the four service quality dimensions combined is 3.12 with a SD of .99.

Table 1 Mean and SD of Participants' Responses to Service Quality Items Dimension/Item N Mean SD A-Service of non-academic staff
The non-academic staff members are approachable and willing to help.
3.25 1.02 The non-academic staff members respond promptly to student inquiries and requests.

.98
The non-academic staff members are respectful and polite towards students.

.95
The non-academic staff members are proactive in identifying and addressing student needs.

.96
The non-academic staff members communicate effectively with students regarding policies and procedures.To interpret the mean scores for the five service quality dimensions and the overall mean score, the 5-point Likert scale on the level of quality was corrected according to Algahtany et al. (2011), which resulted in a new scale with equal intervals, as shown in Table 2.As the mean scores for the five service quality dimensions in fluctuation order and the overall mean score are 3.31, 3.15, 3.14, 3.11, 2.86 and all service quality dimension 3.12, which all fall between third interval (2.61-3.40).It means that the quality of service provided for students at PNC is average, as shown in Table 3.  4 shows that the relationship between the service quality dimension and students' satisfaction.There is a low degree positive correlation between the service of non-academic staff and students' satisfaction (r = 0.263), p<0.01.There is a low degree positive correlation between the first aid services and students' satisfaction (r = 0.332), p<0.01.There is a low degree positive correlation between the service of canteen and students' satisfaction (r = 0.278), p<0.01.There is a low degree positive correlation between the extra-curricular activities and students' satisfaction (r = 0.424), p<0.01.There is a low degree positive correlation between the involvement in social activities and students' satisfaction (r = 0.269), p<0.01.The above table shows that there is a significant relationship between the non-academic aspect of service quality and students' satisfaction.There is a low degree of positive correlation (r=0.494) between the nonacademic aspect of service quality and students' satisfaction.Since the model is significant p<0.01, there is a significant relationship between the non-academic aspect of service quality and students' satisfaction.
Coefficient multiple determinant R Square =.258, which means that 25.8% of variance in students' satisfaction was explained by the combination of non-academic service quality dimensions: services of non-academic staffs, firstaid services, services of canteen, extra-curricular activities, and involvement in social services.
The model was statistically significant F (5, 191) =13.252, p=.000<.01.In other words, a combination of independent variables (services of non-academic staffs, firstaid services, services of canteen, extra-curricular activities, involvement in social services) significantly predicted students' satisfaction.Therefore, there is a significant association between a service quality dimension with students' satisfaction at PNC.
According to Table 5, the statistically significant predictors of students' satisfaction in a fluctuating order of strength are as follows: services of non-academic staffs (Beta=.160),first-aid services (Beta=.153),services of canteen (Beta=.207),extracurricular activities (Beta=.238)and involvement in social services (Beta=.080).In other words, extra-curricular activities are the strongest predictor and statistically significant.However, services of non-academic staffs, first-aid services, services of canteen, involvement in social services is not a statistically significant predictor of students' satisfaction (p >.01).

Discussion
Extensive literature reviews indicate that there is no single literature confirming/ non-confirming the findings of this study.Thus, the relevant literatures related to this study have been included as agreement and disagreement.This study aimed to measure the quality of service provided for students at PNC from the students' perspective.It also aimed to assess the extent of students' satisfaction with their service quality provided by PNC and investigate the effect of service quality on their satisfaction.
The findings of the study indicate that the quality of service provided for students at PNC is more than average.This finding is in line with the findings of the following studies: Kajenthiran and Karunanithy (2015), Muthamia (2016), andEssaoudi andLotfi (2021).However, it disagrees with the following findings such as Hasbolah et al. (2018), Omidian and Golchin Nia (2018), Saliba andGorenc Zoran (2019), andSaba 'Ayon (2015).The implementation of quality assurance, institutional effectiveness, and the ongoing professional development that PNC provides for the non-academic aspects of service quality should all be credited with this outcome.The findings also show that students are overall satisfied with service quality provided at PNC.The outcomes of the investigations conducted by Nauffal (2009), Nasser et al. (2008), Nauffal and Nasser (2007), Al Khattab andFraij (2011), Baniya (2016), Yahaya et al. (2020), and Twum and Peprah (2020) support this finding.However, it is not consistent with the findings from Birhanu (2018).This outcome may be linked to PNC's continued efforts to support the greater standards for students' non-academic aspect of service quality.According to the findings, a mix of service quality factors, including the non-academic factors, also strongly predicts students' satisfaction.Azam (2018), Banahene et al. (2018), Muhammad et al. (2018), Truong et al. (2016), Baniya (2016), Kajenthiran and Karunanithy (2015), and Baniya et al. (2018) have found results that are comparable to this one.In contrast, the studies conducted by Osman and Saputra (2019) and Dib and Alnazer (2013) disagree with it.The findings confirm the findings of the following studies: Ali et al. (2020), Azam (2018), Banahene et al. (2018), andMuhammad et al. (2018) by showing that the "non -academic aspects" are a predictor of students' satisfaction.

CONCLUSION
This study is based on the quantitative analysis of the data collected from PNC than analyses the major influencing factors of the non-academic aspect of service quality.This includes the relationship of service quality with students' satisfaction and the impact of non-academic aspects of service quality on students' satisfaction.The major influencing factor of the non-academic aspect of service quality is the students' involvement in social activities.The results of the study indicate that the quality of service provided for students at PNC is more than average.There is a low degree of positive correlation between the non-academic aspect of service quality and students' satisfaction.As per the results, the extra-curricular activities are the strongest predictor of the non-academic aspect of service quality of student's satisfaction.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
I declare that this manuscript is originally produced by me.

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am thankful to those who directly or indirectly supported me during the preparation of this paper.

Table 2
Correction of the 5-point Likert Scale on Level of Quality

Table 3
Combined Mean of Non-Academic Aspect of Service Quality

Table 4
Correlation Between Non-Academic Aspect and Students' Satisfaction

Table 5
Multiple Regression Analysis