Evaluation of the quality of distance education services in higher education: proposal and evaluation of measurement scale

Abstract

In private higher education, one of the major challenges is to measure the perceived quality of distance education services. Based on the marketing literature, the article analyzed the dimensions of the perceived quality of the distance education service of a community institution of higher education, from the perspective of the student, proposing and evaluating a measurement scale. It is a quantitative, descriptive research, survey and case study. Data collection involved a self-administered questionnaire and the participation of 459 students. The results indicate that the proposed measurement scale has reliability and validity, and can be used to measure the perceived quality of services, from the perspective of the student; that the services of the institution of higher education analyzed have high quality in the attributes relevance of the disciplines, knowledge of the instructors and attendance of the coordination; that the attributes of IES services with lower perceived quality are an incentive to research and stimulate the students' criticality. The study contributed to the identification of dimensions and variables involved in the measurement of the perceived quality of EAD services in the context of higher education.