Achieving excellence in academic service quality with critical success factors identified in university learning

Abstract

Performance evaluation in educational systems must have a balance of measures of and judgment about both efficiency (the relationships of inputs to outcomes) and effectiveness (the relationships of objectives to outcomes). The climate in which this organizational development can blossom has to be positive and supportive and therefore non- threatening. The concept of professional accountability leads to a continual improvement in the quality of service provided. A different mindset is needed to create customer-centered culture in service organizations. Defining and measuring service quality are two main keys to enable service quality improvement. In general, the university as a service organization must design quality into its services. In order to bring about an emphasis on effectiveness in the university learning performance, it is necessary to translate output and process concepts arising out of a systems view into a set of criteria with observable or measurable indicators. Critical success factors can be identified to cover the wide range of performance of academic quality in university learning, for achieving excellence in service quality. This paper illustrates the possible approaches to the concept of educational effectiveness and its measurement.