Abstract:

The quest for quality service delivery in higher education has triggered the deployment of quality assurance systems to evaluate service quality. However, it appears that little has been done to develop an empirically validated model that can be used to effectively evaluate administrative service quality in higher education. The aim of this research was to develop an experimentally proven model for evaluating administrative service quality in higher educational institutions. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey method. Three hundred and seventy-six (376) students sampled from six public universities participated in the study. Questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. The questionnaire included 45 items across five domains (service quality perception, satisfaction, loyalty, value, and institutional reputation). Structural equation modeling techniques were used to analyse the data. The findings suggested that the conceptual model was generally valid and reliable. The findings further showed that service quality was a significant predictor of students’ level of satisfaction, loyalty and value. The findings additionally showed that satisfaction significantly predicted loyalty and loyalty in turn significantly predicted institutional reputation. This model can be used to evaluate administrative service quality in higher education with a higher degree of precision.