SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 22 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) 1)College of Business, Management and Accountancy, De La Salle Araneta University, Malabon, Philippines; 2)Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business, De La Salle University *Corresponding Author: jerico.dalangin@dlsau.edu.ph Submit : 22nd August 2019, Revised : 03rd March 2020, Accepted : 24th March 2020 ABSTRACT This work is aimed at obtaining information and assessing the quality of service experience in a Philippine Private Academic Institution. This study used quantitative descriptive research method utilizing individual level data through adapted researc h instrument from Pamatmat et. al. (2018) utilizing the Service Quality Dimension. Percentage, Mean Score, Frequency Distribution, T-test and ANOVA were used for data analysis. The study sought the participation of 290 parents from a private academic institution in North Metro Manila. Using sampling process on snowball, 290 parents’ respondents were derived using the Slovin’s formula based form the total student population of 1,061 admitted during school year 2018-2019 from the private institution. The Service Quality Experience Instrument was found to be highly reliable (38 items; α = .873). The result highlights the five dimensions of service quality experience where Place of resident and civil status was significant with the five dimension of service quality. Sex was significant to responsiveness. Educational Attainment was significant to assurance. Monthly Income was significant to assurance, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness. Sex was significant to assurance, reliability and responsiveness. Tangible scored lowest possibly due to the concern on available parking spaces which might have impact the totality of the raw score for the tangible service quality dimension. Assurance scored the highest wherein the item that got the highest score was pertaining to the community involvement of the private academic institution. Keywords: Service Quality, Education, Academic Institution, Private School, Quality Perception 1. INTRODUCTION The concept of Service Quality to remains to be constant and imperative in all aspect of business. Companies contribute great significance to living up to clients' desires and expectations. Notwithstanding the effort of these companies to be mindful to its client’s desire, still there are personnel in the organization that lacks customer service orientation (Kanji, Abdul Malek and Wallace, 1999). Eshghi (2008) defined quality of service as a general assessment to meet customers’ expectations. Improving service quality would provide survival and growth of businesses to become competitive by satisfying their customers. In the educational services industry, service quality made Private Academic Institution to be keen and conscious of their customers’ perception on the value and the kind of service received. These private academic institutions continuously explore in making their services more appealing to students and parents as well (Mohamad Yusof, Hassan, Abdul Rahman, & Ghouri, 2012). It is innate that customers have their own perception of the kind of service. Thus, this should define the standards of the company of which it must adhere to the perceived quality of service of its customers, in order to obtain high satisfaction from and retain its customers. Private Academic Institution, those who want to achieve competitive edge will start looking for innovative and imaginative ways to attract, maintain and promote greater strength relationships with its clients, both for students and parents. Teo (2001) suggests that the firms have to be dependent on Business Interaction and Mechanism. The position of quality of service is very important in a private academic institution as they are expected to be more courteous, service orientated and provides a good environment for their learners. Proper decorum of personnel in the mailto:jerico.dalangin@dlsau.edu.ph SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 23 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION offices as well as faculty members should make an ideal representation as this will set the impression of the institution that they belong to. This work aimed at exploring the understanding of parents regarding the quality of service observed in a private academic institution and the critical factors in the quality of service which contribute significantly to the satisfaction of the SERVQUAL model of Parasuraman et al (1988). A. Parent’s Perception of School Services Parents’ involvement in a child's education was consistently linked to the academic performance of a child. In order to learn, the learning environment should be safe amongst the learners, but little research has been done into the mechanisms that explain this association (Gobiga, 2017). Oliver (1997) defined loyalty as a commitment of parents to subscribe their youngster in an institution that will induce behavioral change that can be used for their advancement. Skallerud (2011) stated that decision making and the evaluative processes allows underwriting parents to the institution, thus instilling loyalty towards the institution. Parents who are loyal to an institution continuously send their children to that institution. Having a strong connection with institution parents serve as advocates building a good school reputation. This in turn, provides opportunity for the institution to grow attracting new students as mentioned in the study of Li and Hung (2009). Good reputation correlates to quality and reduces the risk of loosing parents’ loyalty. The study of Helgesen and Nesset (2007) provides a positive link between reputation and loyalty. Managing reputation is an important factor for attracting and retaining students whose influence might have significant because of their parents (Bush et al., 1998). B. Service Quality Businesses utilizes Service Quality as a unique selling proposition by understanding the underlying service quality dimensions perceived by its immediate clientele. Tam (2004) recognizes the consensus that service quality has always been in a form of customers’ perspective. Lovelock and Wirtz (2011) quality of service characterized as reliably surpassing clients’ desire. Perceived service quality subsequently interpreted as a degree to which clients see that services meet expectations. According to Lovelock and Wirtz (2011) quality of service is composed of five dimensions, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Tangibility pertains for physical structures and general appearance of the work force in an organization. Reliability conveys an accurate and guaranteed delivery of service to clients in which its content is highly dependable. Responsiveness prompts the readiness of an organization to help clients in a swift manner. Assurance depicts the politeness and knowledge ability of staff can affect customers of a confident decision or outcome out of the service received. Empathy refers to the organization’s capacity to provide personalized care to customer. Service-oriented firms highly depends on the improvements of service quality as this serves as a metric for measuring success. Business organizations involved in the service industry must met at least the minimum requirements of their customer while being able to sustain competitiveness in the field. According to Aghdaie and Faghani (2012) service quality provision is a factor needed in planning marketing programs. Coetzee (2013) recognizes that superior service quality provides bearing in creating a more valuable business that essentially, ensures customer satisfaction, repetitive purchases and get customer loyalty. A firm’s superior service quality provides competitive advantage that would highly be recognizable in the globalized and industrialized competitive market while the reverse of quality service place one’s business to a more disadvantage position that can drive away customers. C. Service Quality in Private Academic Institution The applicability of SERVQUAL is very universal. This means that in the setup of the academic institution there is a suitability of applying the service quality model. Several studies were conducted by different researchers, who measured SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 24 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION the quality of service at the academic institution. Several studies give different opinions regarding the importance of tangibility on service quality. Smith and Ennew (2001) the selection of experience of fulfillment between affective indignation and technological functionality was emphasized. A specific service used by a person could be measured by how effective they are based on age, appearance, courtesy and empathy-based technological functionality. A facility that is not up-to-date but still able to perform tasks can be considered negative if the individual expects an institution to provide updated facilities. A private academic institution's studies on service quality highlight academics more than administration considering the effectiveness of course delivery and mechanism in relation to teaching quality. Earlier research on service quality at private academic institutions often stressed academics more than resources, focusing mechanisms for the successful delivery of courses and the standard of training and courses. The quality of service explains nearly 43 percent of the change in satisfaction of customers. Other hand, service quality is directly related to loyalty, and changes in level of service: can explain nearly 45 percent of changes in loyalty. Another such point is that the resultant indices of determination will be higher than other instances if the level of satisfaction factor enters the model. This test means that almost 80 percent of improvements in loyalty the satisfaction and the quality of service can be explained, though satisfaction plays a more essential role in this regard (Mosahab et al., 2010) The contribution of this research enables the private academic institution to determine their strengths as well as those areas that needs further improvement. This also provides the institution a concrete evaluations of the kind of service quality that they have been providing to their customers for one year. Furthermore, the research output can be capitalized by the institution to address areas that needs to be improved. II. METHODOLOGY This study used quantitative descriptive research method utilizing individual level data through adapted research instrument from Pamatmat et. al. (2018). The researchers made minor modification in the research instrument wherein in the Reliability service quality dimension, the question “Instructors, professors & lecturers do not cancel classes” was removed since class cancelation is not an option in the institution otherwise, substitution should be made while the problem "The overall cleanliness of the university is evident" was omitted in the Tangible Service Quality Dimension since it is similar and encompasses to the questions “The university buildings and grounds are well-maintained” and “the university atmosphere and decorations have visual appeal.” The research instrument comprised of two parts – first is the respondents’ profile and the second part deals with the observed Service Quality containing 38 statements with regards to the observed level of perception on reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness dimension of service quality. The Tangible subscale consisted of 9 items (α = .875), the subscale response consisted of seven things (α = .892), the subscale response consisted of seven things (α = .965), the insurance subscale was composed of 6 products (α = .901), and the Empathy subscale consisted of 7 items (α = .924). The Research Instrument It was found to be very accurate (38 items; α = .873). The study sought the participation of 290 parents from a private academic institution in North Metro Manila. Using sampling method for snowball, 290 parents replied were derived using the Slovin’s formula based form the total student population of 1,061 admitted during school year 2018-2019 from the private institution. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The respondents mostly are from 41 to 50 years old. The majority of those who replied were women (69%) and resided mostly in Malabon (29%) and Caloocan City (28%). The measures revealed that the respondents have high inclination towards Assurance among the Service Quality dimension. The result showed that amongst the dimensions of service quality, tangible SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 25 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION scored the lowest expectation score (M=3.96, SD=0.73) which may be attributed to the “Parking spaces are available” item, which got the lowest score amongst the questions under tangible. Table 1 Descriptive Statistics of Variables Measures Mean SD Tangible 3.96 0.73 Reliability 4.12 0.62 Responsiveness 4.03 0.69 Assurance 4.23 0.63 Empathy 4.08 2.66 Table 2 shows the significant difference of Service Quality Experience which highlights, civil status was significant at five levels of service quality tangible, assurance, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness. Age was significant to responsiveness. Educational Attainment was significant to assurance. Monthly Income was significant to assurance, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness. Sex was significant to assurance, reliability and responsiveness. Table 2 Significant Difference of Service Quality Experience Variable Variable t p Sex Tangible 2.487 0.116 Reliability 8.037 0.005 * Responsiveness 5.714 0.018 * Assurance 5.942 0.015 * Empathy 3.288 0.071 Age Tangible 1.656 0.160 Reliability 0.991 0.413 Responsiveness 5.67 0.000 * Assurance 0.639 0.635 Empathy 1.721 0.145 Civil Status Tangible 5.671 0.003 * Reliability 4.556 0.011 * Responsiveness 9.365 0.000 * Assurance 10.74 0.000 * Empathy 7.693 0.001 * Educational Attainment Tangible 0.346 0.792 Reliability 1.577 0.195 Responsiveness 1.647 0.179 Assurance 3.632 0.013 * Empathy 0.646 0.586 Monthly Income Tangible 1.337 0.210 Reliability 2.814 0.002 * Responsiveness 2.637 0.004 * Assurance 2.652 0.004 * Empathy 2.106 0.024 * A. Age was Significant to Responsiveness The role of parents who are professional investors for an institution considering that they are whoever subscribes their children to the institution (Apostoleris, 2010). The behaviors which includes ensuring children to have breakfast, volunteering in school works, and holding local office roles determines the involvement of parents. Parents who participated in educating their children with the goal of supporting their academic and social success is functions being carried out depending on the maturity of parents as professional adults having a high degree of understanding. B. Sex was Significant to Assurance, Reliability and Responsiveness Blake (2010) highlighted that parenthood is an important contributor in a child’s education and overall development. It is significant that parents interact with their children on school related concerns. Involvement at home of parents which is highly attributed to a mother in particular, is vital for parents who are quite a lot of people on of their children. This involvement helps children plan that positively strikes the overall academic achievement of a child. C. Civil Status was Significant with the Five Dimension of Service Quality Civil Status of the parent was found to be significant. Effective communication between home and school and vice-versa was a key factor for increasing students’ performance. The participation of family really is a must to achieve the institution goal. Wedding couple that supports their children’s performance can be tagged that it creates impact to the result and decision of the proponents. SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 26 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION D. Educational Attainment was Significant to assurance Parent’s educational level is a good indicator to achieve good student. Parents who volunteer in school are sending a strong message that school is important for their children. Parents who are involved in school should probably be attributed to a better school performance for students, better attendance, and increase motivation towards schools and good behavior. This in return, parents who have high level of educational attainment may have a better understanding of what is happening in school and may be more compassionate for the short comings of the institution. E. Monthly Income was Significant to Assurance, Empathy, Reliability, and Responsiveness Families enroll their children in different nursery schools. Nonetheless, demand for private education in the Philippines is growing, due to increased parental frustration with public education. In a study, it was mentioned that parents chose private institution to enroll their children indicated a number of differences in service delivery in terms of management, teacher qualifications and conduct between public and private schools, indicating a higher quality of education in private institutions. IV. CONCLUSION The goal of this study is to use the service quality model to investigate the impact of the Perception of Quality in a Philippine Private Academic Institution. The following suggestions are given, based on the findings that would further improve the quality of academic institution following the service quality model: 1. Reliability Subscribe to Parent their children to an educational institution because of the quality of education. In order to sustain parent’s loyalty, it is important that the institution has a reliable reputation in terms of quality instruction. Teacher factor is also important for the institution as they are the communicator that provides positive and helpful environment for the parents and students. 2. Assurance It is important that qualified employees (teaching and non-teaching) have the acquired knowledge to that will adhere to make sure that the institution provides courteous and friendly services. In addition, parents who entrust their children to the institution would like to feel assured that these school personnel would properly take care of their children. The school has an influence on the strength and quality of their involvement. 3. Tangible Institution must work on improving school facilities to increase the appeal of the physical facilities and availability of access either online or through flexible office hours and dialogue with the teachers. Education environments also reflects the perception of parents towards safety. A well- maintained institution with adequate facility would likely be conducive to teaching and learning. 4. Responsiveness Being responsive to all parents regardless of their status and concern is very significant that translate how an institution value time and quality with their clients. An institution with delay response would likely make the client or parent detached from the institution, feeling isolated. Thus being responsive addresses this ensuring that parents can rely on the institution should need arises expecting return of inquiry they made for whatever reason. 5. Empathy The school should provide polite and positive responses to the parents and other individuals who visited the school. It is important that understanding the customer’s needs and providing them with empathetic responses would be beneficial in maintaining a good relationship with the university in order to show that the university provides what is for the best interests for these students prior to getting them in the university. Overall, the Private Academic Institution concerned in this study may further improve their services in the light of discussed dimensions of SERVQUAL according to the experience of the Parents and to be able to do a yearly service quality survey that will continuously improve the services of the institution, considering this process as one of the important monitoring and review to SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 27 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION continuously improve the quality of service. Further study may be conducted that will involve school personnel, students and possible non institution member using the same instrument and to create a comparative analysis of the three respondents to determine as to what perceived quality each group of respondents is looking for in a private academic institution. REFERENCES Aghdaie, S.F.A. & Faghani, F. (2012). Mobile banking service quality and customer satisfaction: application of SERVQUAL model. International Journal of Management and Business Research 2(4), 352–361. Agyapong, G.K.Q. (2011). The effect of service quality on customer satisfaction in the utility industry: A case of Vodafone (Ghana). International Journal of Business and Management 6(5), 203–210. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v6n5p203 Apostoleris (2010). Parents perceived quality of and satisfaction with early childhood programs: A study of Taiwanese parents who have a child enrolled in Kindergarten. Dissertation Abstracts International, 62(07), 2338. (UMI No. 3020489). Asubonteng, P. (1996). A critical review of service quality, Vol.10. The Journal of service marketing, 6, p.62-81. Bashir, M.S., Machali, M.M. & Mwinyi, A.M. (2012). The effect of service quality and government role on customer satisfaction: Empirical evidence of microfinance in Kenya. International Journal of Business and Social Science 3(14), 312–319. Baumann, C., Burton, S., Elliot, G. & Kehr, H.M. (2007). Prediction of attitude and behavioral intentions in retail banking. International Journal of Bank Marketing 25(2), 102–116. Beneke, J., Hayworth, C., Hobson, R. & Mia, Z. (2012) Examining the effect of retail service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction and loyalty: The case of the supermarket shopper. Acta Commercii 2012, 27–43. Coetzee, J., Van Zyl, H. & Tait, M. (2013) Perceptions of service quality by clients and contact-personnel in the South African retail banking sector. Southern African Business Review 17(1), 1–22. Eshghi, A. (2008). Service quality and customer satisfaction. An imperical investigation in India mobile Telecommunications services,Marketing management journal , Vol 18,number 2,p.119-144. Homburg, C., Koschate, N. & Hoyer, W.D. (2005). Do satisfied customers really pay more? A study of the relationship between customer satisfaction and willingness to pay. Journal of Marketing 69, 84–96. Kuo, Y-F., Wu, C-M. & Deng, W-J. (2009). The relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and post-purchase intention in mobile value-added services’, Computers in Human Behavior 25(2009), 887– 896. Riadh Ladhari, (2009) "A review of twenty years of SERVQUAL research", International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, Vol. 1 Issue: 2, pp.172-198, https://doi.org/10.1108/17566690910971445 Lovelock, C. & Wirtz, J. (2011). Services marketing: People, technology, strategy, 7th edn., Pearson Education Limited, Essex. Manurung and Wahyono (2018). Impact of Destination Image, Service Quality, and Location on Visitor Satisfaction through Visitor Decision on Global Waterboom in Pati Central Java. [online] Knepublishing.com. Available at: SINERGI, Volume 1 0 Number 1 MARET 2020 28 Jerico John G. Dalangin1), 2)*, Alexander C. Bareno1), Nora Mae E. Bico1) and Xiomara Nina M. De Castro1) PERCEPTION OF QUALITY IN A PHILIPPINE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION https://knepublishing.com/index.php/Kne- Social/article/download/3202/6784 [Accessed 29 Feb. 2019]. Mokhlis, S. (2012). The Influence of Service Quality on Satisfaction: A Gender Comparison. Public Administration Research, 1(1). Olorunniwo, F., Hsu, M.K. & Udo, G.J. (2006). Service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in the service factory. Journal of Services Marketing 20(1), 59–72. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implication. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49, Fall, pp. 41-50. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1986). SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring customer perceptions of service quality. Report No. 86-108, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1988). SERVQUAL: a multi-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of the service quality. Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64, No. 1, pp. 12- 40. Shahin, Arash. (2006). SERVQUAL and Model of Service Quality Gaps: A Framework for Determining and Prioritizing Critical Factors in Delivering Quality Services. Tam, J.L.M. (2004) Customer satisfaction, service quality and perceived value: An integrative model. Journal of Marketing Management 20(7–8), 897–917. Thaichon, P., Lobo, A. & Mitsis, A. (2014) An empirical model of home internet services quality in Thailand. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 26(2), 190–210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/APJML-05-2013- 0059 Wang, I.M. & Shieh, C.J. (2006) The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction: The example of CJCU library. Journal of Information and Optimization Sciences 27(1), 193–209. Zeithaml, V.A., Bitner, M.J. & Gremler, D.D. (2012) Service marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm, 6th ed. McGraw-Hill Education, New York, N.Y.