Abstract
Although the University remains a strong competitor in major sport codes, there has been a general decline in student participation in physical activity. This is evident by the low participation rate of students in competitive sport. The aim of this paper was to investigate students’ expectations and perceptions of the sport offering at the University. A total of 400 students completed the survey using a questionnaire developed from the SERVQUAL instrument. All the service quality dimensions in the students’ surveys of sport at the University contain negative mean gap scores. From these findings, the Sport department at the University can identify specific gaps in the service quality dimensions and seek to close them. Service quality dimensions that are deemed to be good predictors of service quality have been related to factors relating to tangibility, reliability and responsiveness. The University should address these dimensions in its attempt to improve on service quality. The reliability dimension, which has emerged as the most important service quality predictor, needs the most attention.
Keywords
- Expectations Search this journal for Expectations (opens in a new tab)
- Perceptions Search this journal for Perceptions (opens in a new tab)
- Service Quality Search this journal for Service Quality (opens in a new tab)
- Tangibility Search this journal for Tangibility (opens in a new tab)
- Reliability Search this journal for Reliability (opens in a new tab)
- Responsiveness Search this journal for Responsiveness (opens in a new tab)
References
- Armstrong, G. & Keller, P. (2006). Marketing: An introduction. (8th Ed), Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall.
- Bateson, J. E. G. & Hoffman, K. D. (2011). Services Marketing. (4th ed.), Sydney: South-Western Bebko, C. P. (2001). Service intangibility and its impact on consumer expectations of service quality. Journal of services marketing, 14(1), 9-26.
- Bodet, G. (2006). Investigating Customer Satisfaction in a Health Club Context by an Application of the Tetraclasse Model. European Sport Management Quarterly , 6(2), 149-165.
- Cant, M. C., Brink, A. & Brijball, S. (2002). Customer Behavior - A South African Perspective. Cape Town: Juta.
- Curry. A. & Sinclair, E. (2002). Assessing the quality of physiotherapy services using Servqual. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 15(5), 197-205.
- Curwin, J. & Slater, R. (2002). Quantitative Methods for business decision. (5th Ed.) London: Thomson
- Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2008). Marketing Principals: An Introduction. (12th ed.), Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall.
- Harris, E. K. (2006). Customer Service: A Practical approach. (3rd ed.), New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
- Lagrosen, S. & Lagrosen, Y. (2007). Exploring Service Quality in the health and fitness industry. Managing Service Quality , 17(1), 41-53.
- Leedy, P. D. & Ormrod, J. E. (2005). Practical research: Planning and design. (8th ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ. Merrill Prentice-Hall.
- Lovelock, C. & Wirtz, J. (2011). Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy. (7th ed.), Boston: Pearson
- Melewar, H. & Akel, A. (2005). Facets of Corporate Identity, Communication and Reputation. Journal of Marketing Management . 16(8), 859 – 916.
- Perez, M. S., Abad, J. C., Carrillo, G. M. & Fernandez, R. S. (2007). Effects of service quality dimensions on behavioral purchase intentions: A study in public-sector transport. Managing Service Quality, 17(2), 134-151.
- Robledo, M. A. (2001). Measuring and managing service quality: Integrating customer expectations. Managing Service Quality, 11(1), 22-31.
- Ryningen, B. (2010). History of sport. [Online]. (Available: http://www.suite101.com/content/sporthistory [Accessed 2 June 2010].
- Sport Union-Home Page. (2006). UKZN [Online]. Available at: http://www.sport.ukzn.ac.za/ [Accessed on 04 April 2011].
- Zeithaml, V. A. & Bitner, M. J. (2000). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J. & Gremler, D. D. (2006). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm. (4th ed.), New York: McGraw-Hill
Downloads
No downloads have been recorded for this article yet. Figures appear here once readers begin downloading the full text.
How to Cite
Share this article
License
Copyright (c) 2013 Dayaneethie Veerasamy, Jeevarathnam Parthasarathy Govender, Magalingam Atheeshey Pillay (Author)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Author (s) should affirm that the material has not been published previously. It has not been submitted and it is not under consideration by any other journal. At the same time author (s) need to execute a publication permission agreement to assume the responsibility of the submitted content and any omissions and errors therein. After submission of revised paper in the light of suggestions of the reviewers, the editorial team edits and formats manuscripts to bring uniformity and standardization in published material.
This work will be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) and under condition of the license, users are free to read, copy, remix, transform, redistribute, download, print, search or link to the full texts of articles and even build upon their work as long as they credit the author for the original work. Moreover, as per journal policy author (s) hold and retain copyrights without any restrictions.
Keywords
- Expectations Search this journal for Expectations (opens in a new tab)
- Perceptions Search this journal for Perceptions (opens in a new tab)
- Service Quality Search this journal for Service Quality (opens in a new tab)
- Tangibility Search this journal for Tangibility (opens in a new tab)
- Reliability Search this journal for Reliability (opens in a new tab)
- Responsiveness Search this journal for Responsiveness (opens in a new tab)
Section
Published in
Vol. 5 No. 2 (2013)
Monetary Union, Behavioural Markets & Service Quality
View issue contents
Published
Submissions
Have research to publish? Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies welcomes submissions.
Make a Submission