Measuring Student's Perceived Service Quality In HEIs Of Bangladesh:A Moderating Role Of Student Politics

The implementation of Total Quality Management(TQM)practices were initially applied within the manufacturing industries in the early 1980s.Later on,the success of several companies in applying TQM practices encouraged HEIs to apply TQM in measuring service quality.At first,the USA started TQM-based continuous improvement programs in higher education institutions in the middle of 1980s.Consequently,several European HEIs have followed USA to apply TQM.Since then,most developed countries have used this method extensively in their higher education institutions to measure the quality of service.However,the use of TQM practices in higher education institutions to measure the quality of service is one of the most neglected and less studied areas in developing countries.Moreover,the success of TQM practices in an environment is not certain of another context that inspired the author to choose this field of study.In response to increasing demand of the academia,the study measured the student's perceived service quality in higher education and assessed the influence of student politics between the quality factors and student's perceived service quality using the TQM approach.In this study,the analytical model has been developed based on some success factors of TQM that widely used in higher education research.In this regard,I have collected data from 384 respondents by using five points Likert scale from the selected four first established public universities in Bangladesh following unknown population sampling formula using a self-administered structured questionnaire,which included a total of 25 questionnaire items.Data has been analyzed using the partial least squares-structural equation modeling(PLS-SEM)approach and SmartPLS 3.0 software.The results revealed that lacking congenial learning environment,weak student's relationship management,student's dissatisfaction,inadequate student's involvement,and indifferent student's focus hampered student's perceived service quality directly,which is found statistically significant.On the other hand,after including student politics as a moderating effect between three relationships,the PLS model has been enhanced.Therefore,the moderating effect of student politics between congenial learning environment and student's perceived service quality,and student's satisfaction and student' s perceived service quality are found negative and statistically significant,whereas there is no moderating effect of student politics between student's involvement and student's perceived service quality and it was found insignificant.So,it can be said that higher student politics entail a weaker relationship between the congenial learning environment and student's perceived service quality,student's satisfaction and student' s perceived service quality and vice-versa.Finally,with regards to the goodness of overall model fit measures,the results showed that the proposed model of this study is fit considering the threshold value of SRMR and NFI measures.Following the findings of the study,it is very clear that the factors of total quality management practices are not maintained adequately in Bangladeshi higher education institutions that ultimately hampers the service quality.Despite this limitations,the existing nasty party-backed student politics of Bangladesh accelerates the existing bad relationships between the TQM factors and service quality.In this regard,the government,policy thinkers,the practitioners,the civil society should address this issues immediately for ensuring student's perceived service quality in higher education institutions,especially they should rethink in continuing this such devastating student politics.