Distance Education Service Quality in Turkey

Abstract

Universities occupy an important place in the training of qualified manpower needed by a country, in the production of knowledge and in service to the society with the educational services they provide. Due to the limited capacity and increasing demand in higher education, distance education (DE) programs in universities are spreading rapidly. In this study, the components affecting the service quality perception of the DE service offered and the score of the students, who are the most important customers of the DE program, were determined. Service quality was measured by DE-SERVQUAL, which has a 4-factor structure: "e-learning environment", "trust", "accessibility" and "enthusiasm". In the study where 457 valid answers were evaluated, students indicated that accessibility is the most important dimension that determines the DE service quality. It is followed by e-learning environment, reliability and enthusiasm in the descending order. In addition, students gave the lowest score to the e-learning environment dimension in the program they were enrolled in.

Keywords: service quality, distance education, DE-SERVQUAL, SERVQUAL