Initial assessment of two questionnaires for measuring service quality in the Hong Kong post-secondary education context

Abstract

Purpose The SERVPERF (for Service Performance) and the HEdPERF (for Higher Education Performance) are two questionnaires for collecting customer/student feedback on service quality that have been tested and used mainly in non‐Chinese contexts. The purpose of this paper is to adapt and initially validate a Chinese translation of these two instruments for application in the context of post‐secondary education in Hong Kong.

Design/methodology/approach Given that a Chinese translation of the two questionnaires concerned has not been tested in this new response‐context, an exploratory approach was adopted by examining the psychometric properties of the SERVPERF scales and the HEdPERF scales via scale alpha, item‐correlation analysis and exploratory factor analysis using valid responses collected from 271 students.

Findings The alpha values of both the SERVPERF scales and the HEdPERF scales are good or acceptable, with the latter better than the former in general. In the present study, the validity of employing the SERVPERF in the targeted response‐context is supported as all the five SERVERF dimensions have been cleanly identified in the exploratory factor analysis. However, only three out of the five HEdPERF dimensions were identified in the present study, and two of the identified dimensions are complex concepts with each of them exhibited as two factors in the exploratory factor analysis, casting doubt on the appropriateness of the direct employment of the HEdPERF in the targeted response‐context for the measurement of service quality.

Research limitations/implications The students who participated in the present study were pursuing Project Yi Jin, which was a special one‐year post‐secondary programme in Hong Kong.

Originality/value Taking both reliability and validity issues into consideration, this initial investigation indicates that the SERVPERF may be a more appropriate instrument than the HEdPERF for supporting quality assurance in the context of Hong Kong post‐secondary education, especially when multiple questionnaires will be used for collecting students' feedback on their various experiences at different levels, where it is important for these questionnaires to be, as much as possible, simple and non‐overlapping.