Quality Assessment of Administrative Units in Tourism Higher Education Using Continuous Scales

Higher education serves a pivotal role in enhancing citizens’ quality of life and, therefore, must uphold high standards of quality. This study evaluated the quality of services provided by departmental administrative offices using the SERVQUAL instrument, which measures quality through the difference between perceived and expected service performance. Our primary aim was to investigate the marginal behavior of this assessment by capturing the underestimated and overestimated perceptions and expectations. To achieve this, we introduced a modified version of SERVQUAL, replacing traditional Likert scales with continuous scales. This enabled a detailed mapping of the area between underestimation and overestimation, enhancing the instrument’s ability to yield more comprehensive insights. The study focused on the secretariat of the Department of Tourism Management, at the University of Patras, Greece, with second- and third-year students as assessors. Data analysis utilized the endpoints of these continuums. The results revealed that perceived service performance consistently and significantly fell below expectations, with reliability identified as the most important dimension. Furthermore, perception was found to be relatively objective, whereas expectation exhibited greater subjectivity. The findings demonstrate that this approach not only enhances service quality assessment but also provides a new perspective for evaluating tourism services, as a novel research tool.