Educational Quality Gap from Students Viewpoints; Results from a Survey in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Students are the main clients for an educational system. It is believed that using their viewpoints to determine the educational gap is of great value. This can also help to promote educational programs. The aim of this study was to evaluate educational service quality based on students’ points of view in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) in 2016. Method: In a cross-sectional design, 540 students from all seven faculties of MUMS were surveyed. Quota-stratified-cluster sampling method was used to recruit post third-semester students. We used the validated SERVQUAL questionnaire which had 27 paired questions for measuring service quality in 5 domains: Assurance, Responsiveness, Empathy, Confidence and Tangibles. SPSS 16 with p 0.05 was used for data analyses. Results: Mean age was 22.7±4.2 years. Sixty-one percent (327) were female. There was a significant negative gap in all domains in all faculties (p 0.001). The highest and lowest gap of MUMS was in responsiveness (-33.8±22.2) and confidence (-26.9±20.9), respectively. Dentistry (-41.4±21.6) and medicine (-30.7±15.7) faculties had the highest and nursing (-25.6±17.2) and health (- 25.8±14.9) faculties had the lowest educational quality gap. No gender difference was found. Increasing semester worsened the quality gap in four domains (from r=-0.09, p=0.04 up to r=-0.20, p 0.001). Conclusions: A negative gap in all domains in all faculties shows that students expectations are not met properly. We believe that some of these gaps can be easily solved by proper management and reconstruction of presenting services.