Abstract

The increasing number of international students studying in advanced countries has sparked attention on servicequality in higher education. Perception of service quality is subjective, and is believed to vary with thedemographic characteristics of students. This study attempts to investigate the role that demographic factors playin service quality evaluation in the higher education sector. The framework used in this study is adopted fromMin, Khoon and Tan (2012) and consists of four key constructs, namely motivation, expectation, perception andsatisfaction. Applying the Structural Equation Model (SEM) approach to data collected from a sample of 263international students in a private higher education institution in Singapore, the present study found that motiveof study has moderate relationship with expectation and perception of service quality. Satisfaction of students isalso closely and significantly related with the perception of service quality. It was also found that demographyimpacted on the relationships between the elements of service quality. The study included four demographicvariables (gender, age, nationality and current level of study) and it was found that nationality and gender haveconsiderable impact on the weights of relationships. The research findings suggest that education marketersshould take demographic factors into consideration in the design and development of education services.

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